Fifth seed Julian Cash and Lloyd Grasspool concluded with a dream summer and first Grand Slam title with Wimbledon Crown and first Grand Slam title as the British team beat Linky Hijikata and David Pell 6-2, 7-6 (3) on the final Saturday of the men’s doubles.
Queen’s Club and Eastbourne’s Champions Cash and Glasspool were the first all-English pairing to win the All-English Club Trophy since 1936, when Pat Hughes and Raymond Tucky beat their brethren Charles Hare and Frank Wilde in the finals.
“It sounds incredible when you say it,” Glasspool told the BBC. “Last year, Britt won (Henry Patten), the year before (Neil Skepski), so I didn’t think about that much, but now we had to give you two, so we did our best.”
Local favourites were shot from the block after an early break thanks to a poor service game from PEL, ran through the opening set, and bustled with the center court where the home crowd was plagued by the sun.
The Australian Dutch duo of Hijikata and Peru saved a breakpoint at the start of the second set and put pressure on them in the fourth game, but their opponents equaled the task and took a step towards the title when 4-2 went up.
Hijikata and Peru, who participated in the tournament in the first two rounds and survived match points, pulled out levels after eight games before Cash and Glasspool raised gears with a tiebreak to cause a massive celebration.
“We played a crazy amount of tennis on the grass, and there was a lot of pressure on our shoulders,” Cash said. “The fact that we could do it was surreal. Thank you for coming out today, the support was incredible… That’s what it’s all about. It means the world.”
“That’s what we talked about going into this year (winning at Wimbledon),” Cash said. “Maybe a lot of people didn’t believe us. Our team has supported us the whole time. To do it here – that couldn’t mean anything more. To do it in the most special courthouse in the world?
Meanwhile, compatriots Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reed were unable to defend the Wimbledon men’s wheelchair doubles title and fell to Martin de la Puente and Reuben Spargalen on 7-6 (1), 7-5.
