Neal Skupski falls short in bid for first grand slam title outside Wimbledon

Britain’s Neal Skupski missed out on a fourth grand slam title at the Australian Open.

The Liverpudlian reached the mixed doubles final with American Desirae Krawczyk but the pair, who won the Wimbledon title together in 2021 and 2022, lost out 6-7 (5) 6-4 11-9 to Chinese Taipei’s Hsieh Su-wei and Pole Jan Zielinski.

Skupski, who won his first men’s doubles title at Wimbledon last summer alongside Wesley Koolhof, and Krawczyk won the first set on a tie-break and led 4-2 in the second but lost in a deciding tie-break having held one match point.

There was a 19th grand slam title together in wheelchair doubles for Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid, who defeated Japanese duo Takuya Miki and Tokito Oda 6-3 6-2.

It is a fifth title in Melbourne in a row for the all-British duo, who were playing their second match of the day having won a rain-delayed semi-final earlier.

Reid said: “It’s not been easy, it never is easy to win any of them, because there is always strong teams that we’re coming up against. Obviously we’ve got a big target on our back as the guys who’ve been dominating recently.

“I think the numbers are sort of secondary to us. We enjoy them when we hear them afterwards, but for us really I think the key the last few years has been trying to push ourselves as a team, trying to progress the style of play that we bring to the court, and the way that we approach matches.”

Hewett will look to make it a double triumph when he takes on Oda in the singles final on Saturday.

There was also a 15th slam doubles title for Britain’s Andy Lapthorne in the quad division playing with American David Wagner, the pair beating South African Donald Ramphadi and Guy Sasson of Israel 6-4 3-6 (10/2).

Mingge Xu missed out on a place in the girls’ singles semi-finals, the Welsh player losing 6-4 6-3 to Bulgaria’s Iva Ivanova.

Xu and Hannah Klugman were also beaten in the semi-finals of the girls’ doubles, while Viktor Frydrych, playing with Czech Petr Brunclik, lost in the final of the boys’ doubles.