Lucy Foyster, Matthew Knoesen and Gary Cox claim titles at Lexus Wheelchair Tennis National Finals
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Lucy Foyster and Matthew Knoesen became the youngest ever winners of the women’s and men’s singles titles at the Lexus Wheelchair Tennis National Finals in Gloucester as the 2025 domestic wheelchair tennis season came to a close.
Foyster and Knoesen – who are both 12 years old and members of the LTA U14 National Age Group Wheelchair Programme – exemplify how the calendar of LTA regional tournaments and National Finals can be an important part of a player’s performance pathway.
Winner of the 18U junior girls’ singles title at the 2024 Lexus National Finals, Foyster’s success in Gloucester this year included beating 2023 champion Naomie Tarver 6-1, 6-1 in her opening match and then defeating LTA Colour Holder Christine Greer 6-2, 6-1 in the final.
“I approached my match against Christine in a similar way to all my matches. Being on the NAGP Under 14 Programme, we are taught to prepare well. Sleeping, eating, training, warm up, packing our kit bag, so there are less distractions when on the court,” said Foyster, who began her wheelchair tennis career after being invited by fellow Norfolk player Alfie Hewett to go and watch him play at the 20212 Wimbledon Championships.
“I'm kind of glad I didn't know about Chris and how good she was because it might have made me more nervous. I try to focus on my game and I'm starting to believe in myself more, which helps,” she added, referring to Greer, one of Britain’s former top players and a two-time women’s doubles National champion, who has spent much of the last 20 years living in the USA before moving back to the UK more recently.
“Nationals are a great event to see my friends and have fun as well as playing lots of tennis. There were not many girls this year - I would love there to be more players so that we can have another girls’ competition as well as a women's,” said Foyster.
Knoesen has gone from claiming the novice singles title two years ago to winning the 18U junior boys’ singles last year and now adding the senior men’s singles title to another 18U title this year.
In doing so, he also beat reigning and two-time National Finals men’s singles champion Asif Abbasi 6-1, 6-1 in this year’s final and also partnered Abassi to victory in the men’s doubles – again having beaten both of the top two seeds.
Meanwhile, Lilly Folland and Tarver, the respective winners of the women’s singles title in 2024 and 2023, joined forces to take the women's doubles title. The duo built on their success at the second LTA regional tournament in Newport earlier this year.
After testing himself in men’s singles draws in regional tournaments in Grantham and Loughborough this year, Northamptonshire’s Gary Gox focused on retaining his quad singles title at the National Finals. The LTA Colour Holder dominated all three of his round-robin matches, dropping just seven games to win the quad singles title for the sixth time since 2018, with Dan Pennington-Bridges finishing as runner-up to Cox for the third year in a row.
There was another dominant performance in a round-robin draw for South Wales player Evan Hansen in the Novice Singles. Hansen dropped just six of his 66 games played across five matches to lift the Novice title, with Devon’s Brian Hignett finishing runner-up.
The closest of all the title deciders at this year’s National Finals came in the Novice Doubles as three of the players to have won three of their matches in the Novice Singles went head-to-head with Nicolas King and Ben Lake edging out Hignett and Edward Barrett 6-3, 4-6, (10-8).
With Hansen dominating the Novice Singles, there was further success for South Wales Wheelchair Tennis Club players when McKenzie O’Reilly partnered women’s doubles champion Folland to win the 18U junior doubles title for the second year in a row.
Based in Gloucester, Welsh National Champion O’Reilly earned local success at Oxstalls Sports Park as Folland left the National Finals with a brace of doubles titles following their 6-1, 6-3 win Hansen and Melvil Vedrenne-Cloquet in the 18U final.
Following their titles at the Lexus National Finals, 2025 is not quite over for Foyster and Knoesen as they are now among four of Britain’s leading young players who have qualified to contest this week’s new-look ITF Wheelchair Tennis Junior Masters in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
