LTA Press Release - Wednesday 1 September 2021

For immediate release

There was disappointment for Antony Cotterill and Andy Lapthorne, whosequest for the quad doubles bronze medal ended in three-set defeat as the clock tipped past 2am in Tokyo. 

Cotterill and Lapthorne started and finished the quad doubles bronze medal match on two different courts due to the rain that descended on the Ariake Tennis Park in the early afternoon. The Brits earned three set points in the opener but were unable to take their chances. However, they fought for every ball, with Cotterill and his tennis chair tipping sideways in the opening game of the deciding set as he stretched to reach a ball.       

The Brits continued their heroic attempts to win a first Paralympic medal together, but as the clock edged past 2am Tokyo time under the cover of the roof on Centre Court, Moroishi and Sugeno sealed their dramatic 7-5, 3-6,7-5 victory after exactly three hours of play and five hours after the match had originally started. Lapthorne said: 

“We’re obviously devastated. It’s been a long hard road for us as a team. We got ourselves into some good positions and probably made too many mistakes between us. We probably lost it at the end of the first set. At 6-5down I missed three returns in a row and those are the types of things you lookback on and those are the moments that you can’t afford to make mistake and I made too many.” 

Cotterill added: “We both made mistakes, it’s not Andy, we’re a team. That’s first and foremost. Like Andy said, we both made mistakes at the wrong time and, fair play to the Japanese. they capitalised on that and they deserved to win.”  

To find out more about the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Tennis Event visit the LTA website here. To find out more about the LTA’s work with disability tennis, head to www.lta.org.uk/play or email disabilitytennis@lta.org.uk. 

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