HELENSBURGH hero Gordon Reid will start his bid for Australian Open glory in the early hours of Tuesday.

Reid's first round match in the men's singles against the Netherlands' Mikael Scheffers is the third match scheduled on Court 8 at Melbourne Park as the first Grand Slam wheelchair tournament of the year gets under way.

The former Hermitage Academy pupil, who is the fourth seed in the men's singles, is aiming to build on his doubles success at the Melbourne Open last week, when he and his long-term doubles partner Alfie Hewett defeated Joachim Gerard and Stephane Houdet 6-3, 1-6 (10-8) in the final.

The 32-year-old will also be looking to get revenge on the Dutchman after losing to him in straight sets in the quarter-finals of last week's Melbourne Open, the final warm-up for the Grand Slam tournament.

The winner of the Reid-Scheffers first round clash will take on either Tom Egberink of the Netherlands or the United States' Casey Ratzlaff in the quarter-finals.

 

 

Meanwhile, Reid and Hewett - for whom last week's Melbourne Open was their 45th title together - will face host nation opposition when they start their bid for a fifth straight Australian Open doubles crown later in the week.

The unseeded Australian duo of Anderson Parker and Ben Weekes are the Brits' quarter-final opponents, with either Dutch or Japanese opposition awaiting the top seeds in the last four.

Reid and Hewett are aiming to win their 19th Grand Slam doubles title; victory in Melbourne would be Reid's sixth Australian Open doubles crown, stretching back to 2017 when he partnered Gerard to victory over Hewett and Gustavo Fernandez of Argentina.

Hewett, meanwhile, the singles event's top seed, starts his campaign against Japan's Takashi Sanada, also in the early hours of Tuesday.

The action gets under way at midnight GMT; the wheelchair singles and doubles finals will be played this weekend.