Andy Lapthorne and David Wagner upset the odds on the penultimate day of wheelchair tennis action at the Australian Open to lift their fourth quad doubles title together at Melbourne Park after defeating top seeds Sam Schroder and Niels Vink.

Lapthorne was one of three Britons to triumph on the day as Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid set a new record for the number of consecutive Grand Slam doubles titles won by the same partnership. Meanwhile, Diede de Groot and Aniek van Koot made it three women’s doubles titles in Melbourne since 2018 and Van Koot registered her 20th career Grand Slam title.

Paralympic and US Open champions Schroder and Vink made a slow start to the quad doubles final before winning six games in a row to take the opening set, but having let a 2-0 lead slip in the opening set Lapthorne and Wagner were not about to let the same thing happen.

From 4-1 up the Anglo-American partnership saw their advantage slowly whittled down to just one game, but a solid service game kept their title hopes alive to force a deciding match tie-break.

A string of errors from Schroder and Vink proved costly in the deciding tie-break, allowing Lapthorne and Wagner to wrap up a 2-6 6-4 (10-7) victory.

“I think from the celebration at the end you could see how much that one meant to me,” said Lapthorne. “It was a tough proposition before the match to play those two guys. They can clean you off the court pretty quick if you’re not playing well.”

“You're playing the future of the sport,” added Wagner, who has also won two US Open doubles titles partnering Lapthorne. “Those kids (Schroder and Vink) are strong and physical and good. And we’re just trying to survive against those guys sometimes. All wins are great but It's not every day you get to play for a Grand Slam title. And so just to be able to do that and rekindle that partnership with Andy is pretty awesome.”

Hewett and Reid went into their men’s double final against Gustavo Fernandez and Shingo Kunieda leading their career head-to-head 15-6 and with three previous Australian Open semi-final wins over their opponent, all three of them coming in deciding match tie-breaks.

Their latest encounter did not disappoint, also going to a deciding match tie-break, but there was more drama to come. With Hewett and Reid 5-4 up in the race to 10 points, play was halted due to rain and while the players sat courtside for several minutes hoping that it was going to be a brief interlude, play was eventually suspended and the players went back indoors.

As the match resumed Hewett hit a double fault on the first point, but his and Reid’s fortunes improved and the British pairing wrapped up their third successive Australian Open and 14th Grand Slam title together.

The greater significance lies in the fact that Hewett and Reid’s ninth successive title at a Grand Slam took them past the previous record of eight that they shared with Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver, who were unbeaten at the majors from Wimbledon 1983 through to Roland Garros 1985.    

“It means a lot,” said Reid. That's pretty amazing when you list it like that. You know, I think sometimes we don't let it sink in. Kind of each one as it comes now. We're getting used to it a little bit more. But, yeah, we are just really proud of it. I think especially last week (at the Melbourne Open Super Series) was one of our most challenging ones to try and win,  with my (wrist) injury and the lack of time I could get on court over the last couple of weeks.”

While Hewett and Reid added another statistic to the tennis history books, Aniek van Koot brought up a personal landmark as the women’s doubles title she won with Diede de Groot was the 20th of her career.

An entertaining encounter against Yui Kamiji and Lucy Shuker ended with the defending champions posting a 7-5 3-6 (10-2) victory, having been 5-3 down in the opening set. However, the momentum had started to switch in their favour long before they built a commanding 9-0 lead in the tie-break.

“We had to really work for (the win),” said De Groot. “The first set was already a big battle and then unfortunately we had too many mistakes in the second set,” said De Groot. “We really had to up our game in the super tie-break and we did.”

Van Koot fully agreed that the match tie-break showcased the Paralympic champions at something near their best.

“The super tie-break was very nice,” she said. “Especially from Diede. She hit that ball pretty hard. So I’m happy, but also relieved, because with a championship final and no-ad scoring it can go quite quickly and it can change in an instant.

With another major doubles title secure, De Groot and Van Koot now go head-to-head for the women’s singles title on Thursday as Van Koot bids to add to her 2013 Australian Open title.

Meanwhile, Hewett and Kunieda will be on opposite sides of the net once again in the men’s singles final and Schroder will hope for a better outcome to his quad singles when he attempts to prevent Dylan Alcott from securing an eighth Australian Open title on the grand stage of Rod Laver Arena.

Whatever happens, the Australian fans are sure to give the newly-crowned ‘Australian of the Year’ a very special send-off in his last match for retirement.