The Dutch pairing of Robin Ammerlaan and Ronald Vink won the Wimbledon wheelchair doubles title after defeating reigning champions Shingo Kunieda and Satoshi Saida of Japan 4-6, 7-5, 6-2.
Neither pair took a significant lead in the early part of the first set but the Japanese then began to take control, breaking the Dutch pair before Kunieda produced an impressive service game at 5-4 to secure the opener.
The Japanese continued to dominate in the second set, breaking Ammerlaan’s serve to build a 3-0 lead. However their opponents then began to fight back and won the next five consecutive games. Although the Japanese were not ready to give up and brought it back to 5-5 they were unable to prevent the Dutch from claiming the set 7-5.
The Dutch took the first two games of the third set and although the following games were pushed to deuce a number of times, Ammerlaan and Vink managed to seize the advantage and keep their lead. With Kunieda serving at 2-5, the Japanese were able to save one match point before a forehand winner down the tram lines by Ammerlaan secured his team’s victory.
After their win, the Dutch players said that it was “something special” to win on the grass courts at The Championships.
The trophies were presented on court after the match by Peter Bretherton, a Member of the Championships Committee.
The third and fourth place play-off was contested earlier in the day and saw Martin Legner of Austria and Maikel Scheffers of the Netherlands defeat Tadeusz Kruszelnicki of Poland and Miroslav Brychta of the Czech Republic 6-3, 6-2.
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