Britain, secured their appearance in the last four of the world’s premier wheelchair tennis team event after Whiley and Louise Hunt won a decisive doubles rubber for the second day in a row.

In the opening singles rubber, veteran Kay Forshaw went down 6-4, 6-3 to American Dana Mathewson. 

But for the second successive day, 17-year-old Whiley came to the rescue for Britain.

Whiley came from 2-0 down in the final set of the second singles rubber to beat Emmy Kaiser 7-6, 5-7, 6-2 and take the tie into the doubles.

And the experienced doubles partnership of Whiley and Hunt, who have previously been crowned National champions and Junior Masters doubles champions in recent years, never looked like losing as they saw off Kaiser and Mathewson 6-2, 6-1.

The trio now face fourth seeds Japan in the semi-finals on Thursday (May 6).

In the quad event, Britain were not so fortunate as the team look to be suffering from the absence of world number one Peter Norfolk, who is taking a short rest from the game to spend time with his family.

World Team Cup debutant John Parfitt came agonisingly close to his first singles victory in the event  in Britain’s second round-robin match in the quad event against Canada but was edged out 1-6, 6-4, 7-6 by Adrian Dieleman. 

Canadian world number five Sarah Hunter then put the tie beyond Britain with a 6-2, 6-1 victory over 23-year-old Adam Field.

Britain now meet the Netherlands in what is likely to be another tough task against the 2008 champions.

The Netherlands were also the opposition for Britain’s junior team of Alfie Hewitt and Josh Steels but the defending champions, who have the world number one ranked junior boy’s player Tom Egberink in their team, proved too strong. 

Hewitt and Steels were unable to build on yesterday's excellent opening victory against the US and claimed just one game apiece in each of their two set matches against Egberink and Rody die Bie.  

Hewitt and Steels will now take on the Iraq junior team in their final round-robin match.

Meanwhile, after a day’s rest from competition, Britain’s men will take on the Slovak Republic in their quarter-final. 

Victory for the fourth seeds would secure a place in Britain’s first men’s semi-final since 2002.

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


Related stories
May 2010: Whiley inspires Britain to victory over Spain
April 2010: British hopes hit by absence of Norfolk and Shuker