By Tom Degun

May 9 - Britain’s men’s wheelchair tennis team of David Phillipson, Marc McCarroll (pictured) and Gordon Reid joined the women’s and junior teams by finishing fourth in their event at the 2010 Invacare World Team Cup in Antalya, Turkey.



After narrowly losing to top seeds the Netherlands in the semi-final, the men’s side were edged out 2-1 by France in the third-place play-off on the final day of the competition.

Britain started well as McCarroll secured a 6-3, 6-3 win over higher ranked Frenchman Frederic Cazeaudumec in the opening singles rubber.

In the second singles rubber though, 18-year-old Reid struggled with the French world number two Stephane Houdet and lost out 1-6, 1-6 to force the deciding doubles.

McCarroll and Reid teamed up for Britain but they found the French reigning Paralympic and Wimbledon champions of Houdet and Michael Jeremiasz far too much and lost out 2-6, 0-6 as 2009 Invacare World Team Cup winners France picked up third.

In the women’s event, Britain finished fourth after a 2-1 loss to Thailand in their play-off.

In the first singles rubber, Kay Forshaw slipped to a 2-6, 0-6 loss defeat at the hands of Thai former world number six Sakhorn Khanthasit.

However, the outstanding Jordanne Whiley took Britain to a deciding doubles with a 6-1, 6-0 win over Chuarf Inthanin to end the week undefeated in her four singles matches.

The doubles pairing Whiley and Louise Hunt though, subsequently lost 2-6, 1-6 to Athens 2004 Paralympic silver medallists Khanthasit and Ratana Techamaneewat.

Meanwhile, Britain’s juniors Alfie Hewitt and Josh Steels also finished fourth for the second year in succession after a 2-1 loss to Australia to round off a mixed week for the 11-strong squad. 

Claire Lavers, the team manager and Director of Disability Tennis for the Tennis Foundation said: "We have a young team that is beginning to show great maturity.

"That is demonstrated by the leadership shown by 17- year-old Jordanne Whiley in the ladies squad and the improvement of one place by our men’s team to fourth on the world stage.

"It’s particularly exciting when the age range of our men’s players is between 18 and 25.

"Our two juniors surpassed expectations to equal our fourth position of last year. 

"It was great to see them perform very credibly against far more experienced players and the same applies for all the GB squad out in Turkey.

"And for our quad team to come seventh when we are missing all three of our top 10 world ranked quad players [including world number one Peter Norfolk] is another splendid performance."

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