Neal Skupski and Desirae Krawczyk reached the Wimbledon final after battling back to defeat Zhang Shuai and John Peers 3-6, 7-6(4), 7-5.
Skupski reached his first Grand Slam final to join fellow Brits Harriet Dart and Joe Salisbury in the last match of Wimbledon 2021. As a result it is now the first time since 1934 that three Brits have been in the Wimbledon mixed doubles final.
In a tight encounter it was the Chinese and Australian pair who proved stronger in the opening set to claim it 6-3. However Skupski and Krawczyk, roared on by the home support, fought back to take the second set tie break and then claim the crucial break at the right time in the decider to make the final.
Alfie Hewett, Gordon Reid and Jordanne Whiley all added to their collections of multiple Wimbledon doubles titles, as four of five players on the LTA’s Wheelchair Tennis Performance Pathway tasted victory on the penultimate day of The Championships.
Hewett and Reid, the most successful all-British doubles partnership in Grand Slam history, claimed their fourth Wimbledon title after beating Tom Egberink and Joachim Gerard 7-5, 6-2.
Hewett said “It’s a great feeling, we’ve worked hard behind the scenes and Wimbledon is always that title we want to bring home for ourselves, for the people around us and the home crowd. We’re just proud. It’s been a long couple of years waiting to get back out there and we did ourselves proud today.”
Jordanne Whiley and Yui Kamiji won their fifth Wimbledon title after defeating Lucy Shuker and Kgothatso Montjane 6-0, 7-6(0).
In the first Grand Slam women’s doubles wheelchair final to feature Brits on both sides of the net, Whiley and Kamiji raced to the first set 6-0.
Montjane and Shuker made a much better start to the second set to establish a 3-1 lead, but it went to a tie-break and Whiley and Kamiji dominated the close stages to win their first title at The Championships since 2017, when Whiley was 11 weeks pregnant with son Jackson.
After their 12th Grand Slam title as a partnership, Whiley said “It’s amazing. I had forgotten how long it had actually been since we won the title here. It was really special today. The last time I won here with Yui I was pregnant and today he’s (son Jackson) here doing a lap of honour on the court with the trophy, so that was really nice.”
Fellow Brit Shuker, who was contesting her fifth final, said “The first set was pretty poor today, I think it was over in about 30 minutes, which is a bit of record for us. But we turned it around and showed the style of tennis we can play, it’s just a shame we didn’t get that second set to take it to a third. We’re both super-proud to get the win over the top seeds and the world No.1 pair (in the semi-finals). I’ve never beaten them in my entire life, as a pair, so to get that we were so happy,”