British men's No 1 Gordon Reid registered his first win in his first Camozzi Doubles Masters on Thursday in Palazzolo Italy.
The Briton partnered Hungary's Laszlo Farkas to a straight sets victory over French duo Frederic Cazeaudumec and David Dalmasso.
After losing their opening round-robin match on Wednesday, Reid and Farkas maintained an outside chance of reaching the knockout phase of the competition at the weekend as they edged past Cazeaudumec and Dalmasso 6-3, 7-6(3).
Reid and Farkas now face Dutch second seeds and 2006 Camozzi Doubles Masters champions Maikel Scheffers and Ronald Vink in their final pool match on Friday, when they will bid to turn the tables on the Dutch pairing after losing to them in the semi-finals of the Nottingham Indoor at the end of November.
Meanwhile, British women's No 1 Lucy Shuker and Australia's Daniela di Toro came close to upsetting the world's top women's doubles pairing, Korie Homan and Esther Vergeer, on the second day of action at the annual season-ending NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour event.
The second set of pool matches in the women's doubles brought two closely fought contests involving British players, with Shuker and di Toro going a set and 4-0 up against top seeds Homan and Vergeer in a rematch of July's Wimbledon Women's Wheelchair Doubles final.
However, having dropped their first set as a doubles pairing this season, four-time Grand Slam champions Homan and Vergeer won 12 of the last 16 games to seal a 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 victory.
Somerset-based Shuker and di Toro must now beat the tournament's other all-Dutch pairing, Jiske Griffioen and Aniek van Koot, in their remaining pool match on Friday in order to earn a rematch against Homan and Vergeer in this weekend's women's doubles final.
Griffioen and van Koot were given a stern test on Thursday by Warwickshire's British No 2 Jordanne Whiley and her Dutch partner Marjolein Buis. Playing in their first Doubles Masters, Whiley and Buis eventually lost out 6-7(1), 3-6 and now look likely to contest the third and fourth play-off later in the week after taking on Homan and Vergeer in their final round-robin match.
While Reid, Shuker and Whiley contest the Camozzi Doubles Masters, Reid's fellow Scot Kevin Simpson won his first men's singles title of the 2009 NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour on Thursday in Israel.
Simpson beat Israel's Asaf Stokol 6-2, 6-2 in the final of the Beit Halochem tournament in Eilat and then came agonisingly close to adding the men's doubles title at the ITF Futures event.
However, despite each serving for the match in the doubles final, Simpson and fellow Briton Ade Adepitan were eventually denied in a third and final set tie-break.
Earlier in the week Adepitan lost to Stokol in the semi-finals of the men's singles.
Article by Marshall Thomas