Australian Open: Britain’s Gordon Reid and Alfie Hewett win the Men’s Wheelchair Doubles to set a new record

Gordon Reid and Alfie Hewett won a dramatic tie-breaker in the Men’s Wheelchair Doubles Final in Melbourne to secure their ninth consecutive Grand Slam title.

The British pair won the opening set comfortably 6-2 against Japan’s Shingo Kunieda and Argentina’s Gustavo Fernandez. However, the current Olympic silver medalists then lost the second set 6-4 despite leading 4-2 before winning the deciding tie-breaker 10-7.

The win was Reid and Hewett’s third consecutive Australian Open title and also broke a new world record for consecutive Grand Slam titles. Their ninth victory in a row overtook the record set almost 37 years ago by Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver who won eight Women’s Doubles titles from 1983 to 1985.

Scotsman Reid was absolutely delighted to secure another title and reflected on the historic achievement.

“We’re getting used to it a little bit more. But, yeah, we are just really proud of it”

The unbeaten run for Reid and Hewett however looked set to be broken dramatically away from the tennis courts just a couple of months ago.

The International Tennis Federation had initially ruled that Hewett would no longer be eligible to continue competing as they deemed that Perthes disease, which limits hip movement for the Englishman, was not sufficiently debilitating to require the use of a wheelchair.

However, after two years of delays, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the world number one doubles player finally won his prolonged appeal in Amsterdam in November last year and avoided a premature retirement from the sport at the tender age of 23.

Reid and Hewett’s chance at securing a 10th consecutive title will come in May at Roland Garros as the pair look to continue their unbeaten run dating back to September 2019 at the US Open in New York.

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