ITF

ITFWORLD WINTER 2015 15 www.itftennis.com J EAN-JULIEN ROJER and HORIA TECAU are brand new ITF World Champions, ending the Bryan brothers' domination of the men's doubles category thanks to a breakthrough season which saw the Dutch- Romanian pairing capture their first Grand Slam title at Wimbledon. Rojer, 34, and Tecau, 30, first teamed up in 2014 and won eight titles together, but they made deeper inroads at the Slams in 2015. Already runners-up in Sydney, the duo reached their first major semifinal at the Australian Open, losing to Simone Bolelli and Fabio Fognini to start a pattern in which all their Grand Slam losses in 2015 were to eventual champions. Rojer and Tecau won the Rotterdam title, beating Jamie Murray and John Peers in the final. They advanced to the last four at Roland Garros only to fall to Ivan Dodig and Marcelo Melo, but their Grand Slam moment finally came at the All England Club, where A s ITF World Champion for the seventh time, SHINGO KUNIEDA is now the most decorated man in the wheelchair men's category. The Japanese had another stellar season, collecting seven titles on the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour, including all three Grand Slam singles titles on offer, and logging a 30-2 singles record. Tournament wins in Sydney and Melbourne provided the perfect warm-up for Kunieda's Australian Open defence, and at Melbourne Park he lifted the trophy for the eighth time by defeating Stephane Houdet 62 62, the French world No. 2 being Kunieda's scalp in all the major singles finals in 2015. He won the Japan Open without losing a set, and repeated that feat on the way to the Roland Garros title, losing just three games in three matches including a 61 60 win against Houdet again in the decider. Kunieda kept the titles coming at the BNP Paribas Open but withdrew from the US Open USTA Wheelchair Tennis Championships due to injury. He went on however to secure a staggering 20th Grand Slam singles title at the US Open, and thus seal the calendar-year Grand they outlasted Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea 13-11 in the fifth set of their semifinal then defeated Murray and Peers in straight sets to lift the trophy. After losing in the US Open quarters to Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut, Rojer and Tecau's next big move wasn't until the ATP World Tour Finals, where they won the season-ending title without losing a set. They beat Bob and Mike Bryan in the semis to clinch the year-end No. 1 doubles team ranking, and went on to defeat Bopanna and Mergea to claim their third title of 2015. Tecau first received the World Champion award in junior doubles 14 years ago, alongside countryman Mergea. They remain the only Romanians to have been named to the honour in any category. Both Tecau and Rojer, originally from Netherlands Antilles, are former beneficiaries of the Grand Slam Development Fund. Slam in wheelchair tennis for the fifth time. Only in London did the Japanese stumble, Kunieda falling twice to Joachim Gerard at the NEC Masters, in round robin play and again in the final. They were his first singles losses since January 2014 and ended his unbeaten run at 77 matches. In doubles, Kunieda took his career Grand Slam haul to 19 majors, adding the 2015 Australian Open and Roland Garros trophies with Houdet and Gordon Reid respectively, and three further tournaments.

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