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Whiley nets first Grand Slam title in Melbourne

Jordanne Whiley became the first British woman to win a Grand Slam wheelchair tennis title today when she partnered Japan’s Yui Kamiji to a 6-2, 6-7(3). 6-2 victory over Dutch second seeds Marjolein Buis and Jiske Griffioen at the Australian Open in Melbourne.

It was the second Grand Slam title in successive days for a British player on the Tennis Foundation’s Wheelchair Tennis Performance Programme after Andy Lapthorne partnered American David Wagner to victory in the quad doubles on Thursday.

Top seeds Whiley and Kamiji made a tremendous start to their second Grand Slam doubles final as last year’s Wimbledon runners-up dropped just four points in the opening three games and stormed into a 5-0 lead en route to taking the opening set.

Buis and Griffioen fought back to take the second set on a tie-break, but Whiley and Kamiji broke their opponents in the first game of the deciding set en route to a 3-1 lead and they secured another break to love to extend their advantage to 4-1 before serving out the match.

“It was a very close match and I was very nervous, so I’m very relieved and very, very happy to have finally won a Grand Slam,” said British No. 1 and world No. 7 Whiley, who has been making her second appearance at the Australian Open after making her Grand Slam debut in Melbourne in 2011. “At the end of the second set I said to Yui we needed to keep hitting the ball, otherwise we would lose. We are planning on playing all the Grand Slams together this year and we want to win them all.”

Earlier in the day Gordon Reid had to settle for runners-up honours in the men’s doubles after the Scot and Dutchman Maikel Scheffers slipped to a 6-3, 6-3 loss to top seeds Stephane Houdet of France and Shingo Kunieda of Japan in their final.

It was the first defeat for Reid and Scheffers in 2014 after they had won their first two tournaments of the season in Sydney and Melbourne.

Meanwhile, Lapthorne ended his quad singles campaign on a winning note after defeating Wagner in their third and final round-robin match of the week. Lapthorne prevailed 7-5, 7-5 for his fourth career win over the American world No. 1. However, after being edged out in his first two matches of the week by South Africa's Lucas Sithole and Australia's Dylan Alcott, Lapthorne is unable to make it to the quad singles final this time, having finished runner-up to Wagner last year.