British Open history for Hewett as De Groot, Schroder win
The success of the England football team in reaching the final of the recent UEFA European Championships brought the resurgence of the chant ‘It’s Coming Home’, a repeated line from a song released in May 1996, some 18 months before Alfie Hewett was born.
The aforementioned song references ’30 years of hurt’ as a nod to the England team’s failure to win a major trophy since the 1966 FIFA World Cup.
If British wheelchair tennis fans were to fit the lyrics to fit any tournament on the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour that tournament would most likely be the British Open Wheelchair Tennis Championships, which was without a home winner of the men’s singles title in its first 30 editions.
However, all that changed on Sunday in Nottingham as Hewett made history at his home Super Series event after a stunning performance against world No.1 and seven-time British Open champion Shingo Kunieda that meant that the men’s singles title was, indeed, ‘coming home’ for the first time.
The last major tournament before the Tokyo Paralympics saw Hewett and Kunieda, the top two seeds, ease through to the men’s final, Hewett dropping just seven games in his first three matches and Kunieda dropping just 11 games.
Runner-up to Gustavo Fernandez in 2017, Hewett maintained his imperious form in the final, securing a 5-0 first set lead and 4-0 second set lead over Kunieda. However, the Japanese top threatened to launch a comeback before Hewett finally converted his fourth match point.
“I can’t believe how well I played, to be honest,” said Hewett, who also left Nottingham with the doubles title for the second time after partnering Gordon Reid to a 6-2 6-3 victory over French seconds seeds and Rio Paralympic champions Stephane Houdet and Nicolas Peifer.
“I’ve had a great week, played really strong in other matches, but to come out and do it in the final against Shingo, who’s an incredible player and makes it really difficult for you, I’m just really amazed how well I played. Both of us played probably some of our best tennis, but I put the pressure on him right from the very first point served.”
While Hewett became the first Brit to win the men’s singles title, the women’s singles title returned to the Netherlands for the 22nd time as world No. 1 Diede de Groot made it a hat-trick of titles in Nottingham.
Having dropped just one game in her opening two matches against Americans Shelby Baron and Dana Mathewson, De Groot faced Jordanne Whiley in the final, as both players eyed a third singles title in Nottingham.
Whiley, the champion in 2015 and 2016, beat Jiske Griffioen and Aniek van Koot in her quarter-final and semi-final contests, having beaten the same two players in both her previous semi-finals and finals. But after taking De Groot to three sets in their 2019 quarter-final, Whiley was unable to attain the same consistency as the top seed this time and De Groot went on to wrap up a high quality contest 6-2 6-4.
De Groot, who also made it back-to-back women’s doubles titles partnering Van Koot after they beat Lucy Shuker and Whiley 6-2 6-1 in their final, said: “I’m very happy. I’m especially happy with my performance throughout the whole week, The level was pretty consistent and I’m just very happy to play my last prep tournament before Tokyo.
"I think Jordanne played really well and I had to push really hard to get the points and to play my own game, so it was a good fight.”
Three of this year’s six British Open singles or doubles finals were British-Dutch contests and the quad doubles title also went back to the Netherlands as Sam Schroder and Niels Vink became the first all-Dutch partnership to earn the quad doubles title in Nottingham.
Schroder and Vink defeated Brits Antony Cotterill and Andy Lapthorne 6-3 6-3 after recovering from 3-1 down in both sets, providing an insight into what could yet turn out to be a potential medal match in Tokyo next month as they claimed their third Super Series title together.
Partners in the doubles final on the penultimate day of competition, Schroder and Vink went head-to-head in the first ever all-Dutch quad singles final at the British Open as world No. 4 Vink sought to retain the title he won as a 16-year-old on his Super Series tournament debut in 2019.
However, despite Vink having won both of their previous meetings this season on clay courts in France, Schroder found the winning formula on Nottingham Tennis Centre’s hard courts to claim an intense and high-quality contest 6-4 6-3 for his second career Super Series singles title.
“I was really happy with the win today,” said Schroder, whose victory was founded on a solid service game that boasted an 82 per cent success rate of first serves in the opening set. “ I’ve had a lot of difficult opponents on my side of the draw this week, but I’m really happy to take it today and I can take a lot of confidence into Tokyo, where I will play doubles with Niels again.”