Roland Garros 2024: Hewett, Reid & Lapthorne into doubles finals as Ruben Harris wins inaugural boys’ wheelchair doubles title
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Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid booked their place in their sixth French Open men’s wheelchair doubles final on Friday at Roland Garros as Andy Lapthorne reached his fourth French Open quad doubles final, the Brits coming through their respective semi-finals in deciding match tie-breaks.
Hewett and Reid will play Japan’s Takuya Miki and Tokito Oda on Saturday as they bid to win a fifth successive men’s doubles title in Paris after defeating Gustavo Fernandez and Stephane Houdet 3-6, 6-2, 10-8 after exactly 90 minutes.
Having played Fernandez and Houdet numerous times with different doubles partners, it was the first time that the British top seeds had played the Argentinian-French pairing together.
Reid said: “We watched their match yesterday and I don’t think they came out with any surprises today, but what they did do proved effective and difficult to deal with. I don’t think we did a good job of the first set but we stuck at it and managed to turn the match around on to our terms for the second set and the match tie-break.”
Hewett, who lost out to Fernandez in Thursday’s men’s singles semi-finals, added: “We’re not always going to play our A-game and it’s matches like that that are really going to test our team dynamic and togetherness and I thought that we stuck with each other really well today, which is a massive thing when your back’s against the wall.”
Lapthorne’s first tournament together partnering Israel’s Guy Sasson will see the 13-time Grand Slam doubles champion bid for his third doubles title in Paris and his first since 2021 after they beat the Canada’s Robert Shaw and the USA’s David Wagner 6-2, 3-6, 10-2.
From 1-0 down in the deciding match tie-break, Lapthorne and Sasson put together eight successive points and Sasson delivered an ace on their first match point to set up a final against Dutch top seeds Sam Schroder and Niels Vink.
Lapthorne said: “It’s great to be in another final and with a new partner, which is exciting. It’s always fun to learn how different people play and hopefully this is going to be a long-term partnership. I know how to play doubles, I’ve proved that over the years and Guy’s playing really well. So we can go into tomorrow with confidence and I see no reason why we can’t get the job done.”
To cap a brilliant day for Britain’s wheelchair players, 17-year-old Ruben Harris partnered Austria’s Maximilian Taucher to clinch the inaugural French Open boys’ wheelchair doubles title.
After bowing out of the boys’ singles on Thursday against his doubles partner, Harris once again proved that he and Taucher are a formidable doubles partnership after they defeated Australia’s Yassin Hill and Ivar van Rijt 7-5, 6-4 to lift the inaugural boys’ doubles title – their fifth title together.
