SA’s Lucas Sithole wins Australian Open doubles title

South Africa’s Lucas Sithole has won the wheelchair tennis quad doubles title, at the Australian Open tournament, on Thursday, January 28, in Melbourne.

Sithole and his partner, American former world number one David Wagner, turned back the clock to serve past second seeds Andy Lapthorne (GBR) and Dylan Alcott (AUS) 6-1 6-3, in an one-hour battle at Melbourne Park.

It is Sithole’s first Grand Slam doubles title.

“I enjoyed the match very much,” said an excited Sithole.

”It was great to play with David Wagner, it was our first match together and it was easy to play with him; I am extremely excited about taking the doubles title and again winning against Andy Lapthorne.”

After losing to Wagner in his opener on Wednesday, the South African world number three survived a three-setter test against Britain’s Andy Lapthorne in the quads singles, edging out the Brit 2-6 6-1 6-0 to keep his dream of securing a singles title alive.

The country’s top woman player, Kgothatso Montjane, put up a fight on Wednesday against Aniek van Koot, of the Netherlands, in the women’s singles, but the Dutch player snatched a 7-6 7-5 win to knock out the world number eight.

Montjane suffered another loss on Thursday, after she joined forces with German partner Sabine Ellerbrock and went down 6-4 7-5 against second seeds Marjolein Buis and Yui Kamiji, in the first round of the women’s doubles competition.