Helensburgh tennis star Gordon Reid is celebrating achieving a milestone success at the Australian Open – and has thanked his family for their support.
The former Hermitage Academy pupil and fellow Brit Alfie Hewett won their fifth successive Australian Open men’s wheelchair doubles title on Friday.
The men’s doubles title decider saw Reid and Hewett contest their 17th final in 18 Grand Slams as they took on Takuya Miki and Tokito Oda - the same Japanese partnership they'd defeated in three sets in the 2023 Wimbledon final.
Reid and Hewett secured their win in straight sets, wrapping up their 19th Grand Slam title together with a 6-3, 6-2 victory.
It's Reid's sixth Australian Open doubles title in total, with the five he's won alongside Hewett adding to his triumph in 2017, when his partner was Belgium's Joachim Gerard.
And it was achieved in the face of adversity, too, with the British pair playing their semi-final and final on the same day without dropping a set after rain delayed play on Thursday.
After the victory, the Helensburgh hero stated he was grateful to his family for flying out to watch him.
Reid said: “There were some relatives and some Scots out there.
“Some of them have just flown over yesterday for this match. Obviously, it was great to have them there.
“My parents are out here as well. It was my dad's first time at the Australian Open.
“Hopefully he enjoyed himself today and enjoyed that match.”
Hewett said: “Some of the points in that match really displayed the best of wheelchair tennis.
“The best bit about it is you feel the love and the excitement from the crowd as well. Like, you can tell they're getting into the match."
The Brits' win on Friday takes Reid's career total of Grand Slam doubles titles to a remarkable tally of 23 - stretching all the way back to the 2015 French Open.
Reid and Hewett started their doubles campaign at Melbourne Park with a 6-1, 6-0 win over the host nation's Anderson Parker and Ben Weekes.
They then saw off another Japanese duo, Daisuke Arai and Takashi Sanada, 6-3, 6-3 in the semi-final in the first of their two matches on Friday.
Hewett will line up against Oda in the men's singles final on Saturday after the Japanese player, the singles tournament's second seed, edged out Reid 7-6, 7-5 in the last four.
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