LUCY Shuker and Danny Robbins sealed victory in the women’s singles and quad singles events respectively at the North East Wheelchair Tennis Tournament in Sunderland.
British No 1 Shuker, the women’s singles champion in Sunderland in 2008 before finishing runner-up last year, justified top seeding as she regained the ITF 3 Series title after a comfortable 6-3, 6-2 victory over vastly experienced French second seed Arlette Racineux in Saturday’s final.
“It’s always good to get your first title of the season under your belt, although it wasn’t as tough an entry as in recent years,” said the Somerset-based world No 11.
“After I returned from Australia in February I picked up a new chair and this was my first tournament in it after some good training in the last few weeks.
“It’s brought a new dimension to my game, gives me extra stability and allows me to get more power into my shots. Arlette’s a good player, she’s been playing for a long time and is very wily, but I played solidly and served a stack of aces. I can now look forward to my three tournaments in the USA in April.”
In the quad singles, Oxfordshire’s Robbins secured his second career title after winning both his scheduled round-robin matches against fellow Britons Liam O’Reilly and John Parfitt in straight sets.
Robbins reversed a three set loss to Parfitt in the final of last month’s North West Challenge in Preston, Britain’s first world ranking tournament of the year, to win their Sunderland contest 6-1, 6-3, dropping just two games to O’Reilly in his other match.
Meanwhile, British No 2 and world No 20 Phillipson today bids to win his second NEC Tour title in a month on home soil after beating Scottish fourth seed Kevin Simpson in straight sets in his men’s singles semi-final.
The Nottinghamshire top seed, runner-up in Sunderland for the past two years, prevailed 7-5, 6-2 against Simpson and will play Swedish third seed Dan Wallin in Sunday’s final.
Wallin thwarted hopes of an all-British final after upsetting Middlesex’s British No 3 Marc McCarroll in the other semi-final.
Phillipson and McCarroll met in the final of last month’s North West Challenge after Phillipson had beaten Wallin in the semi-finals in Preston.
However, it was the Swede who set up a rematch with Phillipson this time following his 7-5, 6-2 win over McCarroll.
Phillipson and McCarroll paired up to win Saturday’s men’s singles final, earning their second doubles title together this year after winning January’s Melbourne Open in Australia.
The British top seeds beat second seeds Wallin and Lancashire’s Tony Knappett 6-4, 6-2.
Shuker clinched her second title of the week in the women’s doubles, partnering Lancashire’s Anna Tarkowski, the player she had beaten in Friday’s women’s singles semi-finals.
Shuker and Tarkowski dropped just one game in the second set of both their round-robin matches, with Cambridgeshire’s Laura Coteman and Racineux taking runners-up honours.
