Disability Sport Wales
Chwaraeon Anabledd Cymru
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Cochrane wins Utrecht second draw title
Cwmbran 14-year-old Philip Cochrane won his first senior international singles title on Sunday when clinching victory in the Men’s Second Draw Singles at the Mercedes Open, an ITF 1 Series event on the NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour, in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
Cochrane, who became the youngest Briton to gain a senior world ranking last October, is now set to a career high inside the world’s top 200 following his resounding Dutch success.
As top seeding going in to the event, Cochrane had a first round bye and then breezed in to the semi-finals, beating Antony Roy of France and Alessandro Consigli of Italy without dropping a game in either match. Another convincing 6-1, 6-3 win over Jacob van der Veen of the Netherlands earned Cochrane his place in the final, where he beat Dutchman Jelle Oosterwijk 6-0, 6-2 to seal the title.
While Cochrane has his sights set on earning selection for the London 2012 Paralympics, his fellow Britons selected for next month’s Beijing Paralympics had mixed successes in the main draw events.
Cochrane is now ranked World Number 151 at the tender age of 13 years.
In the Men’s Main Draw Singles, Britain’s top two ranked players, David Phillipson and Gordon Reid were drawn to meet each other in the first round for the second year running, with Phillipson prevailing in three sets. While the Nottinghamshire-based British No 1 then slipped to a straight sets loss to French world No 3 Stephane Houdet, British No 2 Reid went on to reach the semi-finals of the Main Draw Consolation Singles, where Spain’s Francesco Tur ended the 16-year-old Scot’s hopes of winning the consolation event for the second successive year.
Beijing-bound Alex Jewitt, from Dronfield, near Sheffield, joined Phillipson in the second round of the Men’s Main Draw Singles after a confident 6-0, 6-3 win over Alvaro Illobre of Spain, but Swedish sixth seed Stefan Olsson proved too strong for Jewitt in the second round en route to going on to win the title. Meanwhile, after an early loss to Dutchman Tom Egberink, Scot Kevin Simpson was a quarter-finals in the Main Draw Consolation before losing out to another higher ranked player, Canadian second seed Lee Carter.
World No 2 Robin Ammerlaan was an unlucky draw for Middlesex 17-year-old Andrew Lapthorne in the first round of the Men’s Main Draw, while Lapthorne’s hopes of progress in the consolation event were thwarted in three sets by Dutchman Peter de Bliek. After beating Lapthorne, Ammerlaan also accounted for Lapthorne’s Middlesex-based training partner Marc McCarroll, who had joined Phillipson and Jewitt in the second round following a 6-4, 6-2 win over Koen Meerwijk of the Netherlands.
All three British representatives in the Women’s Singles made it through the first round, with Somerset’s British Women’s No 1 Lucy Shuker making a confident start to beat former world No 1 Maaike Smit of the Netherlands 6-3, 6-4. Shuker then looked to be on course for a place in the quarter-finals after going a set and 4-2 up against World No 9 Mie Yaosa of Japan, but the Japanese eighth seed came back to win the contest 1-6, 7-5, 6-1.
British No 2 and reigning National Champion Jordanne Whiley beat Dutchwoman Willemien Smits without dropping a game in her opening match, but the Halesowen 16-year-old could only take one game off World No 3 Sharon Walraven of the Netherlands in the second round. Meanwhile, Wiltshire’s Louise Hunt earned a confidence-boosting 6-3, 6-4 first round victory over Chile’s Francisca Mardones before slipping to a 6-1, 6-0 loss to French World No 5 Florence Gravellier.
Macclesfield’s Antony Cotterill fared best of Britain’s three representatives in the Quad Singles, beating Italian Marco Innocenti 6-3, 6-2, but then losing out to Italy’s top player Antonio Raffaele. Meanwhile. Liverpool’s Antony Cotterill had a tough first round draw against World No 9 Bas Van Erp of the Netherlands, with Van Erp edging to a 7-6(6), 6-3 victory.
Middlesex’s Liam O’Reilly was unable to get beyond the opening round of the Quad Consolation Singles, while Burdekin, Cotterill and O’Reilly all lost out to semi-finalists in the Quad Doubles.
French top seeds Stephane Houdet and Michael Jeremiasz accounted for Phillipson and Reid in the first round of the Men’s Main Draw Doubles before also going on to beat McCarroll and his Australian partner Michael Dobbie in the quarter-finals.
Jewitt and Simpson were the only all-British quarter-finalists in the Men’s Main Draw Doubles after beating Cochrane and Lapthorne 7-6(4), 6-2 in the first round, but they could only take one game off second seeds and eventual doubles winners Maikel Scheffers and Ronald Vink in the last eight.
Shuker and Whiley saw their Women’s Doubles challenge end in the first round as they lost out to the top French pairing of Gravellier and Arlette Racineux. However, Hunt progressed to the quarter-finals of the Women’s Doubles, partnered by Evie Erkelens of the Netherlands. Hunt and Erkelens came from a set down to beat the all-Dutch pairing of Marlise Peters and Iet Ree, but found the fourth seeded partnership of Germany’s Katharina Kruger and Yaosa too strong for them in the quarter-finals.
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