No merci shown by Harris

Teenage wheelchair star Ruben Harris is celebrating making history, winning the inaugural boys’ wheelchair doubles title in the French Open at Roland Garros.

It’s the second major international success in just over a year for 17-year-old Harris from Hersden, near Canterbury, who was a member of the Great Britain team that won the junior World Team Cup title in Portugal last May before missing out on the medals at this year’s event.

Harris, who has been based at Canterbury Tennis Club since taking up wheelchair tennis in 2018, has formed a successful doubles partnership with Austria’s Maximilian Taucher.

They had won five ITF junior doubles titles together before it was announced the French Open would become just the second of the four Grand Slam tournaments to host a junior wheelchair tennis draw.

Supported by the LTA’s Under-18 Wheelchair National Age Group Programme, Harris qualified for Paris by virtue of hitting a career-best junior ranking of No.4 in April and, while he lost out to his doubles partner 7-5, 6-2 in the boys’ singles Semi-Finals, it was a different story in the boys’ doubles title-decider.

Harris and Taucher battled back from 5-3 down in the first set against Australia’s Yassin Hill and Dutchman Ivar van Rijt and held on to take the last two games of the second set to seal their 7-5, 6-4 victory after 98 minutes.

“It was an amazing experience to be at Roland Garros and an amazing experience to win the doubles with Maxi,” said Harris.

“Just to play and train alongside all the world’s top players was incredible.

“For anyone else looking to take up wheelchair tennis, I would just say work hard, don’t give up on your dreams and always give yourself targets to work towards.

“I’d also like to say a special thank you to the LTA and all those who came out of Paris for all that they’re doing for me.”

Harris is next scheduled to compete in Hilversum, The Netherlands at the end of the month – at one of the tournaments where he and Taucher were crowned doubles champions in 2023.