Reid hopes he has opened the grand-slam floodgates
GORDON REID arrives at Wimbledon buoyed by recently having joined the Murray brothers as part of an exclusive, three-man group of Scottish grand-slam tennis champions. Three weeks ago, the 23-year-old became the first Scot to land a French Open title when he won the men’s wheelchair doubles alongside Shingo Kunieda of Japan.
Reid has been a member of the world’s wheelchair tennis elite for the past few years, reaching four previous grand-slam finals, but his breakthrough came at Roland Garros earlier this month when he claimed his maiden grand-slam victory. “It was incredible to win in Paris,” he said. “Straight after it, I just felt relief really. I’d always believed that I could win a grand slam but believing it and actually doing it are two very different things. It feels like a monkey off my back to finally win one, especially after the US Open last year.”
At Flushing Meadows last year, Reid reached the final of the doubles and held two match points before finally losing a final-set tie-break. “The US Open was the closest I’d ever been to winning a grand slam and I was devastated to be so close and not win it,” he said. “Then it starts to build up that you’ve still not won one yet. It was starting to get into my head a little bit and it just adds extra pressure. At the French, we had two match points in the second set and lost those. It went to a tie-break and I started to think ‘I can’t have match points and lose out again’.”
The Scot, from Helensburgh, is world No.3 in both singles and doubles but only doubles is contested at the All England Club, the only grand slam that does not include singles on the programme. “Even though Wimbledon is thought to be the most prestigious tournament by the ablebodied players, it’s regarded by us as the fourth grand slam because there’s no singles at it,” Reid explains. “There’s been encouraging noises that singles is going to be introduced soon though. All the players want singles there – it would make a huge difference if it was included but it would still be massive for me to win Wimbledon because it’s the tournament I grew up watching.”
Reid will be seeded second with Frenchman Michael Jeremiasz and will go into Wimbledon with raised levels of expectations due to his newly acquired status as a grand slam champion. He is unfazed by the increased pressure upon his shoulders. “I think people expect me to win more now but I don’t feel any different because I feel like people expected that of me even before the French,” he says. “Now I’ve won a grand slam, I feel more confident in myself that I can do it again. I like having pressure on me – I think it helps you work hard. I put a lot of pressure on myself which is sometimes a good thing and sometimes a bad thing. In training, it’s positive because it drives you but in a match, I think it’s a bad thing because it’s far better to be relaxed. When your mind’s clear, that’s when you play your best.”
Reid was able-bodied until the age of 12 when a neurological condition affecting his nerves in the spine prompted urgent surgery. Coming out of hospital, Reid was paralysed from the waist down. However, he possesses an admirable attitude about his experience. “I don’t really think about being a role model but I know what it’s like to be sporty and able-bodied and then to think that you’ve lost all of that,” he says. “So if someone sees me playing tennis and thinks that they can do that too, then that’s brilliant. You basically have to make a choice – lie in your bed all day or get up and try and become healthy again.
“There’s things from that time in my life that translate into sport too – the determination, the grit and if you can bounce back from a situation like that, then you can cope with anything. It puts things into perspective too – you want to be the best tennis player in the world but at the same time, there are more important things in life.”