Takuya Miki twice upset the odds to win his third Prague Cup Czech Indoor men’s singles title as Sabine Ellerbrock and Ymanitu Silva took the women’s singles and quad singles titles at Europe's last ITF 2 Series event on the 2019 UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour.

A men’s singles draw that began with a dramatic change in fortunes for Croatia’s Anto Joskic, who was a 0-6 6-3 6-1 winner over Poland’s Jerzy Kulik, continued with the first of the eight seeds exiting the event in the second round.

Steffen Sommerfeld beat eighth seed Martin Legner for just the third time as the first deciding match tiebreak between the two players in 25 matches ended with Germany’s Sommerfeld prevailing 7-5 4-6 7-6(5). However, Sommerfeld’s challenge ended in a 6-0 6-2 quarterfinal loss to third seed and former world No. 6 Miki as all four top seeds booked their places in the last four.

It was at that stage that current world No. 12 Miki produced his second successive win over current world No. 6 Alfie Hewett, coming from 5-2 down in the opening set to beat the two-time US Open champion 7-5 6-1. Miki’s first career win over Hewett since the Briton secured his second successive US Open title in September, came at the Sardinia Open.

However, unlike in Sardinia, where Miki lost his semifinal to Nicolas Peifer, the in-form Japanese player backed up his Prague semifinal victory over Hewett with his first career win against world No. 5 Peifer in five matches. Miki’s 6-3 6-2 victory brought him his third Prague Czech Indoor title sine 2015 and his seventh singles title of 2019.

Miki left Prague with both the men’s singles and doubles titles and a second win against Peifer after second seeds Miki and Frederic Cattaneo edged out top seeds Legner and Peifer 4-6 7-5 (10-6) in the doubles final.

Ellerbrock wins second title of 2019

With the Prague Cup Czech Indoor ending ten days before the start of the NEC Wheelchair Singles Masters and UNIQLO Wheelchair Doubles Masters, former world No. 1 Sabine Ellerbrock ensured that she’ll go into the year-end singles championship in Orlando in fine heart after claiming her first Prague women’s singles title.

Ellerbrock is set to only contest the NEC Masters in Orlando, while Britain’s Lucy Shuker is one of the players to have only qualified for the UNIQLO Wheelchair Doubles Masters.

Shuker’s last tournament before flying out to Orlando began with a stirring comeback as the world No. 12 beat world No. 16 Michaela Spaanstra 1-6 6-3 7-5.

However, in the semifinals it was Shuker that made much the better start against second seed Ellerbrock, racing to a 4-1 lead. But while Shuker continued to make life difficult for Ellerbrock, it was Germany’s world No. 9 that found the winning formula to advance to the final 6-7(1) 6-4 6-3.

The other semifinal pitched top seed Marjolein Buis against Russian fourth seed Viktoriia Lvova for just their second career match-up after Buis won their 2014 Sardinia Open round of 16 contest 6-1 6-0. However, former world No. 1 junior Lvova threatened to produce an upset in Prague as she first earned three set points against Buis at 5-2 and 40-0 up and then set up a fourth. However, Buis was more than equal to the task and closed out the semifinal 7-5 6-3.

But it was a different story for the world 4 in the final as Ellerbrock made it 29 wins in 38 matches against the Dutchwoman, taking their latest career meeting 7-5 6-4.

Buis did leave Prague with one title after partnering Spaanstra to an all-Dutch victory in the women’s doubles. After two straight sets wins, the top seeds struggled early on in the final against second seeds Charlotte Famin and Manami Tanaka but dominated the deciding match tiebreak to seal a 2-6 6-4 (10-2) victory.

Silva wins again on return to Czech Republic

Silva made it a hat-trick of ITF 2 titles this season as he wrapped up his second quad singles tournament victory of the year in the Czech Republic.

The first round brought no shortage of excitement as Turkey’s Ugur Altinel, Btain’s James Shaw and Israel’s Yosi Sadaon all booked their places in the quarterfinals after three set wins.

Shaw beat fellow Brit Richard Green 6-2 3-6 6-3, while Sadon kept his challenge on course by winning a second set tiebreak against the third Brit in the draw, Antony Cotterill and going on to complete a 3-6 7-6(4) 7-5 victory. Meanwhile, it was a deciding set tiebreak that saw Altinel maintain his challenge after he edged out Germany’s Marcus Laudan 2-6 6-2 7-6(5).

Sadon’s first season competing in the quad division has brought 16 wins in 21 matches, two tiles and rive runners-up placings and his latest final in Prague came courtesy of wins over three former or current Top 10 players. After beating Cotterill, Sadon defeated second seed Bryan Barten 6-0 7-6(2) and proceeded to beat third seed and Asian Para Games gold medallist Kyu-Seung Kim 6-2 6-7(4) 6-2 n the semifinals.

By comparison, Silva’s path to the final was relatively straightforward after his first round bye, with a 6-1 7-5 semifinal win over fourth seed Shraga Weinberg being his second straight sets win of the week. Having arrived in Prague on the back of winning the Brazil Open title, world No. 10 Silva then made it back-to-back titles and back-to-back wins over Israel opponents as he found his way past a tough opponent in Sadon 6-4 7-6(1).

Barten and Kim’s withdrawal from their semifinal handed Green and Shaw a walkover into the quad doubles final, which featured three Britons as Cotterill lined up alongside Weinberg. Second seeds Cotterill and Weinberg wrapped up the title 6-2 6-1.