Frenchman Stephane Houdet hopes his Australian Open men’s wheelchair doubles triumph alongside compatriot Nicolas Peifer will spur him on to end eight-time champion Shingo Kunieda’s reign in the singles final on Saturday.
In the latest chapter in a storied rivalry, the French No.2 seeds took down top-seeded Brits Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid 6-4 6-2 on Friday afternoon.
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It marked the fourth straight Grand Slam final between the pairs, with the French triumphing at Roland Garros and Melbourne Park, and the Brits claiming the honours at Wimbledon and New York.
It extends their head-to-head record to 11-5, however Hewett and Reid lead their Grand Slam showdowns 3-2.
The 47-year-old Houdet had already beaten his 27-year-old doubles partner in the singles semifinals on Thursday, and joked his younger compatriot would only cheer him on for the singles title if he played well enough.
“Now I’m going to retire next week,” Houdet laughed.
Reid survived a set point on serve at 3-5 in the opening set, before Peifer held to love to seal it 6-4.
The French were relentless in the second set, capitalising on a growing error count from the Brits to snare the double break for 4-1.
Hewett and Reid, who had lost a three-set decider to their rivals in the Sydney final leading in, pegged back one of the breaks, but with rain threatening, Reid dropped serve again when Houdet’s forehand hit the baseline and drew the error.
Peifer was in a hurry to get this done, though, serving it out on his second match point before the pair draped themselves in the French and Australian flags for the trophy ceremony.
“I won with Nico once. I’ve won five or six now but always lost in singles,” Houdet said. “We won the last two [matches against them] in 2018. We were down in Sydney and we came back.
“Today was pretty strange. It seems like Gordon was not in good shape and missed a lot. It happens sometimes.
“It was very close in the first but what happened is, with the no-ad system, we lost only one of those games, and we won three or four in a row, including one where it was 0-40 and we came back, so psychologically it’s difficult.”
Turning his sights to the singles final, Houdet was burdening himself with too much pressure to upset eight-time champion Kunieda.
“Only eight?” he quipped. “It has been a while since we played each other and last week I won, so let’s see.”
Earlier, in the women’s wheelchair doubles final, top seeds Marjolein Buis and Yui Kamiji scored a convincing 6-0 6-4 victory over the all-Dutch pairing of Diede De Groot and Aniek Van Koot.
The Dutch-Japanese pair landed the early break for 2-0 and never let up, romping through the opening set 6-0. Japan’s Kamiji had beaten her doubles partner in the singles quarterfinals, while De Groot had beaten Van Koot in the singles semifinals.
“This tournament we won together two years ago,” Buis said. “We’re both very consistent so we don’t give away a lot of free points to our opponents, and we move really well on the court so we have good court coverage.”
A double fault from Van Koot handed the top seeds break points, but the all-Dutch duo dug deep to end the run of seven games against them to level at 1-all in the second set.
Finally, with the monkey lifted off their backs, the No.2 seeds broke Kamiji to edge ahead 3-2 in the second. Their lead was short-lived as the Dutch-Japanese pair broke Van Koot before Kamiji held for 5-4 to end a run of four consecutive breaks.
The top seeds sealed the title when they broke Van Koot again, Kamiji threading a winner down the middle.
“In the second set they switched sides so that made us need to think,” Kamiji said. “We always kept moving and give them pressure and it really worked, so we’re happy.”
De Groot will earn a shot at revenge when she meets No.1 seed Kamiji for the singles crown.
Later on Friday, Dylan Alcott maintained his pursuit of a fourth successive Australian Open singles title with a 6-2 6-0 triumph over close friend Heath Davidson, who he teamed with for glory in the quad wheelchair mixed doubles 24 hours earlier.
Alcott was in scintillating form, firing down 23 winners under the bright lights at Rod Laver Arena to set up a trophy showdown with top seed and three-time Melbourne champion David Wagner on Saturday.
The duo contested the 2015 and 2016 quad singles finals, with the home favourite storming to straight-sets victories.
“David and I have played in about 50 finals together over the past four years, here at the Australian Open too. It’s going to be really close, he’s a great player,” said Alcott, who saved four match points during a pulsating three-set defeat to the American in the round-robin stage.