HELENSBURGH’S Gordon Reid completed a career Grand Slam of men’s doubles titles with partner Alfie Hewett when they won their first French Open title together at Roland Garros.

The British pair won 7-6, 1-6, (10-3) against defending champions Gustavo Fernandez of Argentina and Japan’s Shingo Kunieda on Friday, October 9.

Hewett and Reid made a remarkable recovery to take the opening set of the men’s doubles final, fighting back from 5-2 down and three set points down to take the opening set.

The Australian Open and US Open champions could not find their way back from 5-0 down in the second set, but they made a much better start to the deciding match tie-break, establishing a 7-1 lead before taking their unbeaten winning streak for 2020 to 16 matches and seven tournaments.

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The duo have now earned themselves a return to the top of the men’s doubles world rankings.

Reid, for whom Friday’s victory brought a ninth Grand Slam doubles title partnering Hewett and a third Roland Garros doubles title after 2015 and 2016 wins with Kunieda, said: “I think the initial sense was of relief after quite an up-and-down match, a lot of twists and turns, and it was quite emotionally draining as well.

“It means a lot to us as a team, because it was the last Grand Slam that we hadn’t won, and we’re not sure how many more times we’re going to have the opportunity to win it together. It’s probably this tournament last year where we got home so disappointed with the way we were playing, so we took a different approach. We committed to spending more time together working on doubles, and I really think that’s showed at the end of last year and the whole of this year.”

Hewett said: “I’m obviously very happy to win the career Slam with Gordon.

“It’s something we’ve been keeping an eye on for a while now, and Roland Garros has always been that tournament where we’ve not managed to play anywhere near our best.

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“It’s been such a strong year and we really believed that we could go out there and get that elusive trophy.

“It could easily have been 6-2, 6-1 [to Fernandez and Kunieda] – they were 5-2, 40-0 up, and playing some pretty good tennis. So, for us to fight the way we did and bounce back so well was quite a turnaround.

“We’re fortunate enough to have the LTA (Lawn Tennis Association) putting in quite a bit of work with us.

“I think that’s a big difference. We work so well as a team.”

World number three Hewett completed a French Open Grand Slam double with victory over world number four Joachim Gerard of Belgium, winning 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 in Saturday’s men’s singles final.

Afterwards, he said: “Amongst everything going on in the world right now, I want to thank the France Tennis Federation (FFT) for hosting the wheelchair event here, taking extremely good precautions to keep everyone as safe as possible.

“This is what we live for.”

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