For the first time in wheelchair tennis history, a men's doubles team has claimed all four Grand Slam championships in the same season.
Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid finished off the feat in the 2021 US Open Wheelchair Competition presented by Deloitte on Saturday, defeating Gustavo Fernandez and Shingo Kunieda in a 6-1, 6-2 championship.The duo joins France's Stephane Houdet, who won all four majors in 2014 with two different partners, as players to do so in doubles.
Hewett and Reid started on their summer swing with the opportunity to join Dylan Alcott and Diede de Groot as players seeking the Golden Slam at the US Open, but they came away with a silver medal in Tokyo—where they were three points from gold—mere days before arriving in New York.
They rebounded in dominant fashion by losing just four games in two matches to win their fifth US Open crown.
"It's an amazing feeling. Something that has almost never been done in wheelchair tennis before. To do it together as a team is something we take a lot of pride in," Reid said.
"To come here and finish the year strongly together, go home with all four at the same time, it's a good feeling."
"For myself, I'm extremely, extremely happy and proud as a team to walk away with a Grand Slam. It's not an easy task to be able to go out there and do," Hewett added.
"We've taken each one as it's come. It's got closer and closer. We're still hurting from last week. What's so impressive is how quickly we bounced back, the level we did it in as well. It was 2-and-1 in a final. We kind of put those memories behind us and just focused on what was important today, and that was obviously to get the title."
The US Open marks Hewett and Reid's 31st overall title together and 12th Grand Slam, which includes a run to the last eight majors in a row. They've also partnered to win two Paralympic silver medals, and started on the road to this point eight years ago with many world-beating goals in mind.
"In 2013, Alfie was still young. He was sort of up-and-coming, just finishing school. He wasn't full-time playing tennis, wasn't sure what he was doing. I was kind of playing the slams with foreign partners, but I was looking for somebody to try to work towards the Paralympics in Rio together," Reid recalled.
"When Alfie finished school, he started playing more tennis, committing more time to that. I thought it was a good opportunity. I could see he was going to be a great player. I think it was a good idea for us to start the team from an early position all those years ago.
"I think we've grown stronger and stronger every year. But especially probably the last two or three years we've put a lot more time and effort, invested more energy into the doubles side of things as well. I think the results that we've had is showing that that's paid off."
"I think Gordon has been the mentor in the partnership. Obviously, I was young when we initially came together. A bit of a journey, I think, for ourselves. What we've accomplished over the last few years is just a result of the hard work, the time that we've put into this partnership," Hewett said.
"Not sure how many hours is spent in other partnerships. We know as a team kind of with our locations, geographical issues, him being in Scotland, we still manage to come down and chat when we're apart to keep things ticking over. It's good to see the results are coming off.
"It's been a long journey. We've had our ups and our downs in that moment, but we've always come back together stronger, always tried to figure out a way to improve as a team. Obviously as individuals, people, we've grown up. We've learnt a lot over the last seven years. We've only got stronger, only gelled more and more.
"We've had one common goal, which is to succeed."
