Tennis: Gordon Reid aim high after French Open final | Tennisspeak

 

Tennis: Gordon Reid aim high after French Open final | Tennisspeak

HELENSBURGH’S Gordon Reid says he’s looking ahead to an exciting summer of wheelchair tennis after the 11-time Grand Slam champion and Saturday’s French Open runner-up contested his first Grand Slam men’s singles final in almost three years.

Reid lost to world No.2 Gustavo Fernandez 6-1, 6-3 as he met the Argentinian in the final in Paris for the second time since 2016 – a year in which the Brit also won his first two Grand Slam singles titles and became Britain’s first Paralympic men’s singles gold medallist.

Reid Beaten in French Open Final

At the end of an encouraging week that saw Reid come from a set down to beat Belgium’s Joachim Gerard in the last eight, before repeating the feat against world number one Singo Kunieda in the semi-finals, the 28-year-old said: “There are a lot more positives to take away than negatives this week.

“Obviously, you come into every tournament trying to win it and when you don’t do that it’s disappointing.

“Today I played some good tennis, I just didn’t do it consistently enough to win the title.

“These are the kind of matches you want to be involved in. That’s what you train for and work hard for. So it’s good motivation and inspiration for what’s to come.

“It’s given me a lot of confidence this week and hopefully I can take that on to the grass now.”

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Reid and fellow Roland Garros semi-finalist Alfie Hewett are among a field of eight players for the wheelchair tennis event at the Fever-Tree Championships at The Queen’s Club from June 21-23.

“It’s the first time we’ve had an official world ranking tournament at Queen’s,” Reid added, “and that’s really exciting.

“Last year’s exhibition singles and doubles tournament was great, but it’s exciting to have a ranked tournament this year.

“Of course, Wimbledon is the highlight of the year for us British players, so I can’t wait to be back there, hopefully.

“And then we’re back on hard courts in Nottingham for our home Super Series, the British Open Wheelchair Tennis Championships.”

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Reid will need a wildcard for Wimbledon before he can aim for more Grand Slam success and he and Hewett can target a fourth men’s doubles title.

But in the more immediate future the focus for Reid and some of the other leading Brits on the LTA’s GB Wheelchair Tennis World Class Performance Programme is the BNP Paribas Open de France, the fourth wheelchair tennis Super Series event of the year.

Reid safely negotiated the first round with a 6-1, 6-1 win over the host nation's Geoffrey Jasiak, but after partnering France's Frederic Cattaneo to a 6-0, 6-2 win over Ezequiel Casco and Nic Langmann in the first round of the doubles, the pair were beaten 3-6, 4-6 by the Dutch paid of Tom Egberink and Maikel Scheffers.