Liverpool's Neal Skupski is a Grand Slam champion after he and Desirae Krawczyk soared to mixed doubles glory against Joe Salisbury and Harriet Dart at Wimbledon.


Skupski is one of a group of players supported by the LTA’s Elite Support programme, which delivers court access, medical, sports science and wellbeing support at the National Tennis Centre for ATP & WTA Top 100 singles players and Top 32 doubles.


He and older brother Ken had lost in the second round of the men’s doubles, though with French Open mixed doubles champion Krawczyk by his side, he was the seventh seed and reached a first ever Grand Slam final in the mixed.


That run included a quarter-final win over 14th seeds Jean-Julien Rojer and Andreja Klepac on what marked both Skupski and Krawczyk’s Centre Court debut – as well as a thrilling semi-final win against 17th seeds John Peers and Zhang Shuai on Court 1 yesterday.

On paper, Skupski and Krawczyk were favourites in the final against the unseeded British duo of Salisbury and Dart.

Dart, like Skupski, was in her maiden Slam final though Salisbury was in his fourth after winning the French Open alongside Krawczyk just a few weeks ago.

And despite a tighter second set, it was Skupski and Krawczyk who prevailed 6-2 7-6 (1) in the final match of the Championships.
And jubilant Skupski, 31, said: “It’s an unbelievable feeling. It makes it extra special that this is Wimbledon, my home Grand Slam.

“We played really well today. I think it was our best match of the tournament - it’s a good time to produce that! It’s never easy to play against fellow Brits, but Desirae’s on fire.”

Krawczyk added: “It’s obviously great to make the finals, but to win another Grand Slam is just amazing. It’s been a great two weeks playing with Neal. We’ve had a lot of fun together and we’ve got to know each other. It’s been really great.”

Fresh off his greatest triumph, Skupski’s focus now switches to Tokyo where he will play in an Olympic Games for the first time alongside Dan Evans.

And the Merseyside ace added: “I’ll go home to Liverpool and take a few days off, but then I’ll come back to London and train for a couple of days before we head out to Tokyo.

“It’ll be a long trip but I’m looking forward to it. I think we’ve got a good team. There’s a good opportunity for us to bring some silverware home. Hopefully we have a good Olympics.”


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