WANBOROUGH wheelchair tennis star Louise Hunt has finished runner-up in the women’s doubles at the UNIQLO Wheelchair Doubles Masters in Mission Viejo, California.

Hunt and Germany’s Katharina Kruger, the winners of three of their previous six doubles events as partners, started the Doubles Masters as fourth seeds and won one of their two round-robin pool matches to qualify for Saturday’s semi-finals before pulling off a memorable win over Dutch third seeds Marolein Buis and Michaela Spaanstra.

Hunt and Kruger came back from 5-2 down in the final set to beat Buis and Spaanstra 6-2, 4-6, 7-6(6) after saving three match points in a contest lasting three and three-quarter hours.

Their win ensured that there would be British players on either side of the net in Sunday’s final, with Hunt and Kruger facing top seeds and defending champions Jordanne Whiley and Yui Kamiji, the winners of all four Grand Slam women’s doubles titles this season.

After another promising start for Hunt and Kruger, Whiley and Kamiji eventually went on to retain their title 6-2, 6-1, with Hunt buoyed by a personal best Doubles Masters performance for both herself and her partner.

“I’m so proud of our performances this week, it was really special for us to play here together and get so far,” Hunt said.

“Obviously, as four-time Grand Slam champions this year and the world’s top two ranked doubles players, Jordanne and Yui are always going to be tough opponents.

“But it was great experience for us as a pair and we are going to take that into Prague and more tournaments next year.”

Hunt’s next tournament is set to be the Prague Cup Czech Indoors at the end of November, one of the final international tournaments of the year for British players on the Tennis Foundation’s Wheelchair Tennis Performance Programme, before the National Wheelchair Tennis Championships in early December in Gloucester.