De Greef, Hewett, Sasson win in Georgia to boost Cajun Classic hopes
Lizzy de Greef earned a timely boost ahead of this week’s Cajun Classic in Baton Rouge as she clinched her first ITF 1 Series hard court title to join Alfie Hewett and Guy Sasson in lifting the singles trophies at the Georgia Open on Sunday.
After ending her 2023 UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour season with wins over Aniek van Koot and Jiske Griffioen for her first ITF 1 singles title at the Catalonia Open in Spain, De Greef again came out best of the Dutch players in the women’s singles in Rome, Georgia after the sixth seed beat Van Koot 7-6 6-3 in the quarter-finals.
Top seed Griffioen was one of two seeded players beaten by 24-year-old Xiaohui Li as the Chinese player, who won the first nine titles of her career in 2023 and took world No. 1 Diede De Groot to three sets at the Melbourne Open earlier this season, booked her place in the last four.
However, that was as far as Li would go after a 6-4 6-3 loss to De Greef, who then earned her first singles title of 2024 with a 6-3 6-4 victory over fourth seed Dana Mathewson.
The result sees De Greef move up three places to a career-best No.7 ahead of the Cajun Classic, the second Super Series tournament of the season, while Li also earns a new career-best at No. 13 after a little more than one full season on the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour.
Li's successful week also included her first women's doubles titles at ITF 1 Series level and her first title partnering Zhenzhen Zhu after the Chinese duo beat top seeds Mathewson and Manami Tanaka 7-6(4) 6-4 in the final.
Hewett breaks Oda win streak to retain men’s title
With the world’s top two women’s and quad singles players bypassing the Georgia Open and heading straight to the Cajun Classic, Hewett and Tokito Oda once again set up a showdown between the top two ranked men’s players as they won through to face each other in the Georgia Open decider for the second year in a row.
World No. 1 Oda had to spend more time on court than Hewett on his way to his third singles final in three tournaments this season, the toughest of his three straight sets wins coming in his 6-1 7-6(5) semi-final win over Martin de la Puente.
By comparison, Hewett’s three straight sets wins through to the final came with the loss of just seven games and the world No. 2 maintained his form in the decider as he reeled off six games in the second set to retain the Georgia Open title 6-3 6-3.
In doing so, Hewett ended Oda’s win streak of 12 matches for 2024 and secured his first win over the top seed since the 2023 Georgia Open final to maintain pressure on Oda at the top of the rankings.
After taking Oda to a second set tie-break in their singles semi-final, De la Puente had three more tie-breaks to contend with in the men's doubles, winning all three alonside Joachim Gerard. The top seeds extended their unbeaten winning streak to three titles this season after defeating Daisuke Arai and Oda 6-3 1-6 (10-3).
Sasson powers to quad singles title
Hewett’s dominant week in the men’s singles was matched by top seed Sasson in the quad singles as the world No. 3 and Australian Open finalist made it 11 wins from 13 matches this season.
With his only two losses in 2024 so far coming against Niels Vink and Sam Schroder, Sasson will have now have Vink to contend with at the Cajun Classic after dropping just four games in Rome, beating Heath Davidson 6-3 6-0 in the semi-finals and Andy Lapthorne 6-1 6-0 in the final.
While Davidson and Lapthorne both lost out to Sasson in singles, both players were involved in an absorbing quad doubles final as Lapthorne and Greg Slade attempted to build on recent Bolton Indoor success.
However, the Brit challenge eventually ended in the match tie-break as top seeds Davidson and Robert Shaw earned their first quad doubles title of the year 6-3 3-6 (10-5).
CAJUN CLASSIC: LIVE SCORES AND LIVE STREAM
Live scoring and live streaming from two courts at the Cajun Classic will be available to access here throughout the six days of competition (5-10 March) at the second Super Series tournament of 2024.