Roland Garros 2026: Alfie Hewett & Gordon Reid win seventh straight title as Matthew Knoesen lifts junior trophies
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Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid took their Grand Slam men’s doubles title tally to 24 today at Roland Garros after the top seeds claimed a record-extending seventh successive French Open title on a day when Hewett also booked his place in his sixth French Open men’s singles final.
A trophy-laden day for the Brits also saw Matthew Knoesen clinch both the boys’ wheelchair singles and doubles titles as he went one better than he did in both corresponding finals at January’s Australian Open.
World No.1 men’s doubles partnership Hewett and Reid extended their unbeaten record against Spain’s Martin de la Puente and Stephane Houdet of France to five matches after a 6-2, 6- victory.
The Paris 2024 Paralympic gold medallists broke their opponents to love in the fifth game to start a sequence of four successive games as they eased to the opening set.
De la Puente and Houdet briefly rallied after falling 5-1 behind in the second set, but there was little to stop Hewett and Reid’s momentum as they moved on to 22 matches unbeaten at Roland Garros in all competition since June 2020.
Hewett’s second ace of his men’s singles semi-final against world No.4 Gustavo Fernandez of Argentina saw him level the opening set at 4-4, having been 2-4 down against the player he had beaten to win his first Grand Slam singles title in Paris in 2017.
Hewett was never behind again and went on to wrap up a 7-5, 6-4 victory for his fourth win over Fernandez in seven French Open semi-finals since 2019. The British No.1 will now play world No.1 Tokito Oda in their third Roland Garros singles final in four years.
After finishing runner-up in both the Australian Open boys’ wheelchair singles and doubles finals on his junior Grand Slam debut, 13-year-old Knoesen capped a brilliant week after helping the Great Britain boys’ team to victory last weekend at the first standalone BNP Paribas Junior World Team Cup in Belgium.
Knoesen reversed the result of his Australian Open singles final against Belgium’s world No.2 junior boy Alexander Lantermann as he fought back from a break down in both sets of their Roland Garros final to prevail 7-6(4), 6-4.
The third British wheelchair player supported by one of the LTA’s National Age Group Programmes to win a junior wheelchair Grand Slam singles title, Knoesen returned to court a little over 90 minutes later with Lantermann as his partner to earn a 6-4, 6-3 victory over all-British duo Will Barton and Lucas de Gouveia.
De Gouveia had partnered Lantermann to victory at the Australian Open, while Barton joined forces with Knoesen last week to seal Great Britain’s boys’ title at the Junior World Team.
