Brit No.1 Andy hoping to serve up first singles title win
WORLD No.4 Andy Lapthorne will attempt to win his first quad singles title tomorrow at the LTA’S British Open Wheelchair Tennis Championships after a premature end to his semi-final yesterday at Nottingham Centre.
Lapthorne will play Australian third seed Heath Davidson after his Canadian semi-final opponent Rob Shaw was forced to retire.
British No.1 and 2019 Wimbledon singles finalist Lapthorne made an uncharacteristically subdued start to his semi-final against world No.9 Shaw as he continued to battle against the effects of a chest infection that began before he launched his bid for this year’s Wimbledon title. However, after falling 5-2 behind in the opening set, Lapthorne refused to give in and fended off five set points on his way to winning five games in a row.
Shaw received treatment for a hip injury in between sets and eventually retired with Lapthorne leading 7-5, 3-1.
“I’m just trying to play good tennis all the time, not worrying how it has gone before or what the score is,” said Lapthorne, whose sixth British Open final will be against world No.5 Davidson. “Thankfully I managed to do that today and good things happen when you do that.” Lapthorne’s doubles campaign in Nottingham came to an end on Thursday evening, just four days after he was runner-up in the quad doubles final at Wimbledon. Davidson will be the second Australian opponent Lapthorne has faced in a British Open final, but it will be Davidson’s first final in Nottingham after beating the USA’S three-time British Open champion David Wagner 6-1, 6-2 in the other semi.
Elsewhere, world No.3 Aniek van Koot of the Netherlands will join Lapthorne in contesting a sixth British Open final on Sunday. The Dutch top seed, who was runner-up in Nottingham for five successive years between 2012 and 2016, beat China’s Zhenzhen Zhu 6-4,
6-1 in her women’s singles semi-final this time.