Unlike some other Paralympic sports, wheelchair tennis is not about setting records, even if the quad doubles bronze medal match did last a record four hours and 25 minutes. It's about raising the bar, figuratively speaking, and in that respect the sport succeeded wonderfully on its seventh official appearance at a Paralympic Games here.

It's come a long way since it first appeared at a Games, as a demonstration sport at Seoul in 1988. And to think that its founder, Brad Parks, was once advised by a leading figure in wheelchair sport that wheelchair tennis would never succeed.

Try telling that to Gordon Reid, Jiske Griffioen, Dylan Alcott and all the other Paralympians at Rio 2016 who kept large crowds enthralled throughout the eight days of competition at the Olympic Tennis Centre.

The standard in the men's singles and doubles was so high that Shingo Kunieda, the two-time defending singles champion, was compelled to remark with the dignity we have come to expect of this great champion: "I need to improve more, like the British guys."

Wheelchair tennis didn't just entertain those with a penchant for racket sports. It reached out to all those sports fans who enjoy nothing more than to see a sport keenly contested at the highest level with skill, flair, determination and not least a deep respect for the opposition - something which isn't always apparent in more financially rewarding able-bodied sports.

The first South American Paralympics delivered as a whole and not least in wheelchair tennis. "Mission accomplished," as Carlos Nuzman, the president of the Rio organising committee, said at the closing ceremony.

The Frenchman, Stephane Houdet, the world No. 1 singles player, told itftennis.com before the wheelchair tennis competition began that his event would produce a surprise but hopefully not at his expense. As it turned, there was a surprise and it was at his expense, at least as far as the singles was concerned.

Alfie Hewett may not have won gold, but the 18-year-old East Anglian won the hearts of many with his enthusiasm and self-belief that he could beat more experienced and better qualified players than himself, which he did not once but on three consecutive occasions, making it right through to the final. An all-British final between himself and Gordon Reid was more than Team GB could have dreamed of, never mind young Hewett.

And if the final proved a little one-sided in favour of the more experienced Scot, the future as well as the present is bright for British wheelchair tennis with the two young Britons taking a silver too in the doubles when experience for once in these championships had the final word, the 45-year-old Houdet and his solid younger partner, Nicolas Peifer, taking gold.

Typically, all it did for young Hewett was whet the appetite for next time - the 2020 Tokyo Paralympic Games: "Two silvers now," he said, "next time two golds."

Perhaps then we will see the Dutch stranglehold on the women's singles broken for the first time in seven Paralympics. It said something about the challenge they could face there that the Briton Jordanne Whiley had dared to come to these Games with real conviction that she could be the one to break their domination, but her hopes and dreams were dashed by a desperately unfortunate wrist injury early in the competition.

The sweet, diminutive Japanese, Yui Kamiji, who won bronze in the singles, won't want for motivation in Tokyo nor support and one doesn't just mean from the Japanese. More popular figures in this sport than Kamiji and her compatriot Kunieda it would be hard to find.

For Griffioen it was a case of double Dutch, except her two gold medals made perfect sense after her success in the NEC Masters in London last December. It meant that two athletes in this sport had achieved that distinction.

The quad athlete Alcott had set his heart on winning gold in a second sport after his success in basketball at London 2012, although he never expected gold in two wheelchair tennis events: quad singles and doubles. He won the latter with his good friend Heath Davidson, who was returning to the sport after a 10-year hiatus.

Griffioen and her doubles partner, Aniek Van Koot, whom she beat in the singles final, may not be around in four years time, but it was obvious from the growing maturity of 19-year-old Diede de Groot that the future of Dutch wheelchair tennis is in safe hands, just as the seven-time Paralympic champion Esther Vergeer intimated it was several months ago.

Of all the honours bestowed here, Vergeer's receipt of the Brad Parks Award before the competition began was perhaps the most deserving.