ACSA South Africa Open ITF1 (Disability, ITF)
25th April 2012
British players won three ITF 1 Series titles on the final day in Johannesburg with Marc McCarroll winning the men’s singles title before pairing up with fellow Brit and singles runner-up Gordon Reid to win the men’s doubles title.
Andy Lapthorne capped a great day for the Brits as he clinched the quad singles title.
McCarroll clinched his first ITF 1 Series men’s singles title after coming from a set down to beat British No. 1 Gordon Reid 4-6, 6-2, 6-3.
With both players in their first ITF 1 Series final, Reid edged the first set, but McCarroll won the last four games of the second set to force the decider. The first two games of the third and final set went with serve, before McCarroll edged ahead after three successive service breaks.
McCarroll extended his advantage to lead 5-2 and had two match points in a tense eighth game before Reid finally made it 5-3 on his third break point.
However, McCarroll would not be denied and eventually closed out the victory to secure just his third win over Reid in eight head-to-heads on the NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour and his first since 2010.
A busy day for McCarroll and Reid saw them back on court within an hour of their singles final but they eased past Brazilian duo Rafael Medeiros and Daniel Rodrigues 6-1, 6-0 in their men’s doubles semi-final.
The British tops seeds made another confident start to the final against Japanese second seeds Yoshinobu Fujimoto and Takashi Sanada, dropping just the sixth game of the opening set.
Fujimoto and Sanada came out strongly to lead the second set 2-1, but McCarroll and Reid broke the Japanese duo’s serve to snatch a slender 3-2 lead before eventually earning two match points en route to wrapping up a 6-1, 6-4 win that give them their eighth doubles title together and their first at ITF 1 Series level.
Andy Lapthorne added to the British success when he won the quad singles to lift his fifth ITF 1 Series title after beating Israel’s Boaz Kramer 6-3, 7-6(1).
Lapthorne took an early 4-1 lead over his unseeded opponent in the final and, after Kramer had broken back, world No. 4 Lapthorne took the last two games of the first set.
A tense second set saw Lapthorne slip from 2-0 up to 3-2 behind as Kramer dug deep, but top seed Lapthorne twice moved to within a game of the title at 5-4 and 6-5 before dominating the tie-break to clinch his second ITF 1 Series title of 2012. In March he also won the Cajun Classic in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Meanwhile, Antony Cotterill completed his tournament on a winning note in another all-British final. Cotterill beat Adam Field 6-4, 6-1 in the quad consolation singles final to secure his first win over Field in three attempts this season, although Field still leads their career head-to-head record 11-9.