Scheffers & Lapthorne win titles on final day of 21st British Open Wheelchair Tennis Championships

World No. 4 Maikel Scheffers won the first Super Series men’s singles title of his career on Sunday as the 21st British Open Wheelchair Tennis Championships, part of the NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour, drew to a dramatic close at Nottingham Tennis Centre. 

Meanwhile, Britain’s Andrew Lapthorne and Lucy Shuker had conflicting fortunes in the quad doubles and women’s doubles finals respectively, with Lapthorne pairing up with Sweden’s Johan Andersson to win his first Super Series title in either quad singles or quad doubles competition.

After contesting a string of Super Series semi-finals, Scheffers began his first men’s singles final at Super Series level in fine form, breaking his compatriot Ronald Vink in the fifth and seventh games of the first set and forcing Vink into an increasing number of errors as he took the opener 6-2.

Vink achieved the first break of the second set to move 3-1 ahead and although Scheffers had the chance to break back in the seventh game he missed the opportunity, allowing Scheffers to stretch his lead to 5-2.  Two games later second seed Scheffers clinched the set to force a decider.

The lead changed three times in the first five games of the final set with Scheffers saving three break points to take a 3-2 lead, which he extended to 4-2 thanks to Vink serving a double fault on game point.  With Scheffers now in the ascendency and profiting from a series of big forehand winners, he went on to drop just one more game and wrapped up his first British Open title 6-2,  3-6, 6-3.   

“It’s my first Super Series and it’s been a long-time coming, but now I’ve got it I’m very happy,” said Scheffers, a regular hitting partner for his compatriot and women’s world No.1 Esther Vergeer, who won her 10th British Open women’s singles title on Saturday.  “I’ve never even got to the semi-finals at the British Open before so this is really great.  It was a good match and it’s always hard playing Ronald as we know each other so well.”

The quad doubles final began superbly for second seeds Andersson and Lapthorne as they dropped just the fourth game en route to taking the opening set in 13 minutes against top seeds Sarah Hunter of Canada and David Wagner of the United States.  However, Hunter and Wagner need just the same amount of time to race through the second set without reply.

Lapthorne’s dream of a first Super Series title seemed to be disappearing as Hunter and Wagner went 3-0 ahead in the final set, but Andersson and Lapthorne then started to find gaps in their opponents’ defence put together an amazing run of six games in succession to clinch a remarkable 6-1, 0-6, 6-3 victory.

“Right now I’m a bit speechless,” said Lapthorne.  “The first two sets seemed to whizz by and I think they were waiting for us to rediscover our form in the final set, which thankfully we did.  Once we got back to 3-3 I was pretty confident we had them and we never looked back,” added the Briton, who had lost to Wagner in a close quad singles quarter-final earlier in the week.


Another British victory in the women’s doubles final proved elusive for Shuker and her partner Florence Alix-Gravellier of France as they took on top seeds Aniek van Koot of the Netherlands and Belgium’s Aniek van Koot.

Sevenans and van Koot secured an immediate break before Alix-Gravellier and Shuker came back to level the contest at 3-3.  However, the Belgian-Dutch partnership went on to clinch another break as they negotiated the final three games of the first set.

Alix-Gravellier and Shuker secured a double break of their own as they took a 5-2 second set lead and although their opponents managed to retrieve one break the Anglo-French duo held on to force a final set.

However, with Alix-Gravellier due to retire from competitive tennis later this year, a dream end to what is likely to be her last British Open proved beyond her and Shuker as both players had their serves broken en route to Sevenans and van Koot wrapping up a 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 victory.  

Seven of the world’s top 10 men, six of the world’s top 10 women and seven of the world’s top 10 quad division players have been among a field of 100 entrants for the 21st British Open Wheelchair Tennis Championships,