Tokyo 2020 Paralympics: Hewett and Reid cruise into men's wheelchair doubles final
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Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid guaranteed themselves and ParalympicsGB a second successive men’s doubles wheelchair tennis medal on Tuesday after the Brits beat Japanese third seeds Shingo Kunieda and Takashi Sanada 6-2, 6-1 at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics.
Hewett and Reid’s win capped an amazing day for British players at the Ariake Tennis Park after Jordanne Whiley booked a place in the women’s singles semi-finals with a 6-3, 3-6, 7-5 victory over American Dana Mathewson that also guarantees that the two-time doubles bronze medallist will have the chance to play for her first Paralympic singles medal.
Rio silver medallists Hewett and Reid produced their latest stunning display of doubles tennis to beat Kunieda and Sanada in an hour and 27 minutes.
After making a great start to her semi-final Whiley was unable to recover from a 3-0 deficit in the second set. But with temperatures on Court 1 creeping above 30 degrees, the extended 20 minutes break before the start of the third set helped her to regain her focus.
Whiley etched out a 5-1 lead in the decider and served for the match for the first time at 5-2 before earning her first match point at 5-3.
Her second match point at 5-4 disappeared after a double fault, but Whiley negotiated her nerves against a resilient opponent to break to love for a 6-5 lead and then earned three more successive match points, securing a semi-final against Dutch world No.1 Diede de Groot as she slotted home a final backhand down the line winner.
Tomorrow's matches
Men's singles - quarter final
Gordon Reid vs Gustavo Fernandez
Alfie Hewett vs Nicolas Peifer
Women's doubles - semi final
Jordanne Whiley & Lucy Shuker vs Zhenzhen Zhu & Ziying Wang
Quad doubles - bronze medal match
Andy Lapthorne & Antony Cotterill vs Koji Sugeno & Mitsuteru Moroishi
