Greg Slade became the first British player to win both the Bolton Indoor ITF 3 and ITF 2 quad singles titles as the LTA’s back-to-back world-ranking wheelchair tennis tournaments at Bolton Arena came to a close on Sunday with Israel’s Maayan Zikri matching Slade’s feat in the women’s singles.
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 10 days in Bolton with a 6-3, 6-4 victory over American second seed David Wagner.
Now set to make a significant move back towards his previous career high world ranking of 14, Slade said: “There was 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. I knew I had the ability to win.”
The British number two 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 Chile’s Diego Perez.
British number one Shuker made it seven women’s doubles titles in Bolton since 2014 after she partnered France’s Pauline Deroulede 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.
Zikri 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 number one Maikel Scheffers of the Netherlands 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 and added the men’s doubles title alongside fellow Frenchman Frederic Cattaneo.
