Greg Slade & Lucy Shuker lift titles at the Bolton Indoor ITF 2 Wheelchair Tennis Tournament
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Greg Slade became the first British player to win both the Bolton Indoor ITF 3 and ITF 2 quad singles titles as back-to-back world ranking wheelchair tennis tournaments at Bolton Arena came to a close on Sunday.
Israel’s Maayan Zikri matched Slade’s feat in the women’s singles, meanwhile, Stephane Houdet of France retained his ITF 2 men’s singles title and Lucy Shuker added a second British title in the women’s doubles.
After starting the week by winning the ITF 3 Series quad singles title on the ITF’s UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour when third seed for the first of the two tournaments, Slade was unseeded for the ITF 2 tournament but completed a memorable 10 days in Bolton with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over American second seed David Wagner.
Not only did he beat former world No.1 Wagner for the first time, but reached the final after also defeating top seed Diego Perez of Chile.
Now set to make a significant move back towards his previous career high world ranking of No.14, Slade said: “There was a bit off added pressure at the ITF 3 because I knew I had to defend as many points as possible, but once I had done that it took the pressure off.
"While I knew I was in the harder half of the draw for the ITF 2 I knew it was an opportunity to pick up points and I did that quite successfully. Diego and David are two very different styles to play, but I knew I had the ability to win.”
The British No.2 narrowly missed out on completing the full set of Bolton Indoor ITF 3 and ITF 2 quad singles and doubles titles in the same year when he and Wagner finished runners-up in Saturday’s quad doubles final to Slovakia’s Tomas Masaryk and Perez.
British No.1 Shuker made it seven women’s doubles titles in Bolton since 2014 after she partnered Pauline Deroulede of France to win their second tournament together as a doubles team. The second seeds beat Zoe Maras of France and Zikri 6-3, 6-4 in the final after an early loss to the same partnership at the ITF 3 tournament.
Zikiri completed the 10 days of international wheelchair tennis in Bolton unbeaten in eight singles matches after defeating Ksenia Chasteau of France 6-2, 6-1 in Sunday’s ITF 2 final.
Meanwhile, top seed Houdet retained the men’s singles title after beating fellow former world No.1 Maikel Scheffers of the Netherlands 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 and added the men’s doubles title alongside fellow Frenchman Frederic Cattaneo.
