Saturday brought a day of mixed outcomes for British tennis participants at the French Open, with disappointing results in three out of the four finals featuring UK players.
Hannah Klugman was defeated in the girls` singles final, and the British men`s doubles duo, Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski, also finished as runners-up in their final match.
However, Alfie Hewett had a more varied day; after losing the wheelchair men`s singles final, he rebounded successfully to clinch the wheelchair men`s doubles title alongside his partner Gordon Reid.
Klugman`s impressive run in the French Open girls` singles tournament ended at the final hurdle with a loss to Lilli Tagger. The young British player, the first from Britain to reach a Junior final at Roland Garros in 49 years, was overcome by the strong performance of the Austrian, who won the match 6-2, 6-0.
Klugman has previously won LTA Junior National titles in Britain and reached the third qualifying round at Wimbledon last year at just 15, marking her as a potential future star. Tagger, however, delivered a superb performance and was clearly the better player on the Parisian clay against the 16-year-old Brit, securing victory in a convincing manner.
Last June, Klugman gained attention by winning two matches during the Wimbledon women`s qualifying event. She works with her long-term coach Ben Haran, alongside renowned strength and conditioning coach Jez Green and physio Will Herbert.
Klugman has also benefited from training at the Rafa Nadal Academy in Mallorca in March, where she received encouraging words from the `King of Clay` himself. “I had three days there, which was amazing, I`m so grateful they gave me that opportunity at Rafa`s. I love Rafa,” Klugman commented. “He said to me, once you have the level, things will come, so trust the hard work, the process. If you`re not having results right now, you have to keep believing.”
British Pair Beaten in Men`s Doubles Final
Later on Saturday, Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski faced another defeat for Great Britain, losing the men`s doubles final in three sets to the fifth seeds Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos, 6-0, 6-7 (5-7), 7-5.
The partnership, which only began playing together earlier this year, had already achieved a historical feat by becoming the first British men`s doubles finalists at Roland Garros since 1936.
After being dominated in the first set, they fought back to take the second in a tie-break. The decider remained tight, and they were close to taking a 4-3 lead before a remarkable shot from Zeballos changed the momentum. The Argentine managed to hit the ball around the net post to level the game at deuce, and Salisbury and Skupski were ultimately edged out 7-5 in the final set.
Hewett Loses Singles Final, Wins Doubles Title
Further British disappointment came in the wheelchair men`s singles final, where Alfie Hewett was defeated by Japan`s Tokito Oda, with the match ending 6-4, 7-6 (8-6). The player from Norfolk, a three-time French Open champion, could not add to his tally, losing a close contest against the top-ranked 19-year-old.
However, Hewett did secure his seventh men`s doubles title alongside fellow Brit Gordon Reid, triumphing over the pair of Oda and 54-year-old Frenchman Stephane Houdet.
Hewett and Reid`s latest win extends their remarkable sequence to six successive doubles titles at both the French Open and the Australian Open, the year`s first two Grand Slam tournaments.
Securing two service holds gave the British duo a 4-1 advantage en route to winning the first set. However, as Hewett and Reid`s previously perfect record on deciding deuce points began to falter, the second set started to slip away from the top seeds.
Nevertheless, the reigning Paralympic gold medallists, who won at Roland Garros last September, staged a tremendous fightback from a 5-1 deficit in the deciding match tie-break. Hewett ultimately fired a cross-court forehand towards Oda`s chair that the Japanese player couldn`t return, securing a memorable victory for the British pair.
