Scott Duncan & Marcus Willis win their first ATP Challenger title; Heather Watson finishes runner-up in Andorra
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Catch up on last week's British tennis action, marking career-firsts and strong ends to the season for our wheelchair tennis stars.
Duncan & Willis win career-best title
British doubles duo Scott Duncan and Marcus Willis ticked off a new milestone last week in winning their first ATP Challenger title in Maspalomas.
Duncan and Willis had to do things the hard way – defeating second seeds Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and Vijay Sundar Prashanth 6-2, 6-7(2), 11-9 in the semi-finals, before going on to beat top seeds Sadio Doumbia and Theo Arribage 7-6(5), 6-4 in the final.
The Brits have won four titles together this season, with Maspalomas the crowning jewel of 2023. The win means that Duncan has risen 35 places in the rankings to world No.180, while Willis is up to world No.166.
Meanwhile in Andorra, Heather Watson enjoyed a strong campaign at the WTA 125 Creand Adorra Open – where she reached the semi-finals of the singles and final in doubles.
Watson has returned to the WTA singles top 150 having picked up wins over Timea Babos, Alina Charaeva and Jessika Ponchet to make her first semi-final since the Rothesay Open Nottingham in June. There she eventually lost out to Erika Andreeva 6-7(6), 7-5, 6-0.
The Brit went one better in the doubles with Babos, but finished runners-up to Andreeva and Celine Naef 6-2, 6-1.
Gray, Jones & Stevenson bring home trophies on the ITF Tour
Alastair Gray made it back-to-back M15 finals last week as he claimed a sixth career ITF singles title in Madrid.
Having fallen short at the final hurdle only the week before in Heraklion, Gray took home the title in Spain having won four matches without dropping a set and then finishing with a 6-1, 6-7(5), 6-2 victory against Hazem Naw in the final.
Ben Jones and David Stevenson continued their strong end to the 2023 season by winning the M15 Sharm El Sheikh doubles title.
Jones and Stevenson closed out the week by defeating Grigoriy Lomakin and Evgeny Philippov 7-6(5), 7-6(2) in the final to claim their fourth and second doubles trophies of the year respectively.
Breakwell & Bartram finish year on a high
It was a dream end to the season for Abbie Breakwell, who won the singles and doubles titles at the Tenerife Open last week.
Breakwell only dropped five games en route to the final, where she held off a comeback from second seed Sandrine Cauderon Paulin to win 6-0, 2-6, 7-5.
The 20-year-old Brit then joined up with Spain’s Lola Ochoa to win their third title together this season, thanks to a 6-2, 6-2 final win over Paulin and fellow Brit Ellie Robertson.
Breakwell has now won a combined 11 titles to close out the year – bringing Great Britian’s total to 81 wheelchair tennis trophies in 2023.
Her success last week means that she has become British No.2 at world No.37.
Ben Bartram completed his season with his third men's doubles title of the year at the Antalya Open, where he partnered Robin Groenewoud to victory. They beat Daniel Caverzaschi of Spain and Alwande Sikhosana of South Africa 7-6(0), 6-2 in the men's doubles final.
Bartram – who recently featured in the last episode of Beyond the Baseline – also made the semi-finals of the singles draw and looks set to end the season as world No.19.
Martha Harris finished women's singles runner-up at the Bourassa Savaria International Open in Montreal. Harris lost to Canadian top seed Natalia Lanucha in her third women's singles final of the year 6-0, 6-3.
