Gordon Reid ready to put singles frustration into doubles run at Wimbledon

By James Reid at Wimbledon

Gordon Reid is ready to banish the demons of singles defeat ahead of a tilt at a sixth doubles title at Wimbledon.

Reid went out of the men’s wheelchair singles in the first round on Wednesday, losing 6-4 6-4 to Gustavo Fernandez of Argentina.

It was a mirror of the pair’s match at the LTA’s Lexus British Open Roehampton a week ago, when the Argentine won by the exact same scoreline to notch his first win on grass over the Scot.

Reid admitted he was not at his best as Fernandez repeated the feat for the second week in a row but is now ready to train his focus on doubles action with Alfie Hewett.

“It’s a tough one,” said Reid, who won the singles title at the All England Club in 2016.

“It was a big match for me in a lot of different aspects and it is a big disappointment for me to lose it. I will spend the rest of today trying to get over it.

“I got off to a pretty good start in the first couple of games but from that point I never really settled into the match and it felt like one of those days where nothing was really working for me.

“I couldn’t put him under enough pressure and that allowed him to dictate too many points.

“Ultimately I tried to stick in it and battle away but I didn’t have enough quality to get the better of him.

“The doubles is always a lot of fun for us here and we have had some great memories here at Wimbledon. I will try and use that as motivation for the rest of the week.

“It is difficult to see that bigger picture at the moment because it is obviously still fresh. It’s not something that I haven’t done before so I will be ready when the time comes.”

Fernandez took control of the contest midway through the first set and never let go from there to book his place in the next round.

And Reid admitted the pair’s meeting last week down the road in Roehampton had some bearing on the outcome in SW19.

“It probably has a little impact,” he added. “When you go into a match unbeaten against somebody you have maybe got a bit of an edge and that was probably turned around last week.

“But if I go out today and do what I need to do and execute the plan then it is going to be enough but I wasn’t able to do that today.

“When I was executing the serve it was very effective but the consistency was nowhere near good enough. There were a few things that were not far away but the repeatability just wasn’t there often enough.”

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