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Britain’s Alfie Hewett won his second title of the 2020 French Open by beating Belgium’s Joachim Gerard in the wheelchair men’s singles final.

He trailed 3-1 in the decider, received treatment for a left shoulder issue but returned take the next five games.

It is the second time he has won the singles title at Roland Garros and his 13th Slam win in singles and doubles.

“I hope to get a good pizza in tonight to celebrate,” Hewett ,22, said.

“It’s amazing to come here today and get the double. Me and my left shoulder are ready for a break.”

As Hewett served for the match there was a lengthy delay at 15-15 because of an mechanical issue with Gerard’s chair.

When play resumed Hewett won the next three points, sealing the match after two hours 36 minutes with a volley at the net.

Hewett’s win with Reid on Friday meant the British pair completed a clean sweep of the doubles titles in the three Grand Slams available this year.

He also reached the singles final at the US Open last month.

Alfie Hewett celebrated an Australian Open title that he is expecting to be his last after being told he does not meet new classifications for wheelchair tennis.

The 22-year-old teamed up with fellow British player Gordon Reid to beat French top seeds Stephane Houdet and Nicolas Peifer 4-6 6-4 (10-7) in the men’s doubles final.

Hewett, who has two Paralympic silver medals and nine grand slam titles across singles and doubles, has Perthes disease, which affects the hip and femur.

Reid, who will contest the singles final against Shingo Kunieda of Japan, said: “It’s obviously been tough.

“I can’t imagine putting myself in Alfie’s position. Classification in Paralympic sport is a very controversial subject, one that’s never going to be perfect, and there’s always going to be someone that misses out.

“Things could change – I wouldn’t be surprised if they did – and hopefully this isn’t the last year we see Alfie playing wheelchair tennis.”

The International Tennis Federation decided that Hewitt was not disabled enough to play in its tournaments.

After the last ball of January’s wheelchair doubles final was hit, the new Australian Open champion, Alfie Hewett, pushed himself over to fellow Briton Gordon Reid for a celebratory high-five. Then he dissolved into tears….

For most elite sportspeople in Britain the Covid-19 lockdown is a temporary, if painful, episode. For Britain’s three-time wheelchair tennis grand-slam event champion and Paralympic silver medallist Alfie Hewett, coronavirus brings added anguish.

Mercifully for one born with a congenital heart defect that required surgery at six months, and a victim of rare hip abnormality Perthes Disease, Hewett’s physical health is not at issue. The torment is, however, real.

Following revisions to the wheelchair tennis classifications made by the International Tennis Federation and approved by the International Paralympic Committee last year, Hewett was advised that 2020 would be his last season in a sport that has shaped his life.

“I’ve been keeping on a physical programme, watching matches and keeping that tennis brain active,” he says. “It is a strange period. As things stand, my career will have to finish at the end of the year. With this pandemic going on there is obviously a bigger picture. I just hope they will allow me and the other athletes affected to compete in the Games next year.”

Hewett first took to his wheelchair after being diagnosed with Perthes Disease, a condition that inhibits blood flow from the pelvis to the hip joint, at six years old. Successful treatment, which involves immediate wheelchair use to protect against load bearing on the legs, depends on early diagnosis. As a football-mad kid, Hewett ignored the early signs and played on with negative consequences in adulthood. Though walking is possible, Hewett is not mobile in the conventional sense and nowhere near athletic in any meaningful way while upright.

“I want to carry on competing for the foreseeable future, not just an extra year,” he says. “Obviously the ITF have a lot on their plate deciding what happens with Olympic qualification, classification, rankings, points systems, etc. Questions have been asked from my side whether this is going to be my final year. It is still unknown.”

Over and above the Olympic situation, there is a sense of injustice around the treatment of Hewett, and others similarly affected, for whom the able-bodied game is not an option. “It’s not fair,” he says. “I was allowed into the sport when I was eight or nine. There were certain rules and guidelines then. I have played for 13 years. I have had an unbelievable career. I’m proud of where I have got. There has been a lot of sacrifice and hard work. I wanted to get to the top and make it a full-time living. Just as I reach that point, these guidelines have come in and it has affected where I stand.”

What should be an uplifting story about a boy overcoming not one, but two chronic health conditions to carve his place in the world through wheelchair sport has turned into a political mess. Not only is Hewett denied a future, his achievements, which include two US Opens and a French Open singles title and five major doubles titles, plus two Paralympic silvers, might be construed by those of a cynical disposition as tainted.

Understandably, Hewett is frustrated at the ruling. “They don’t understand what I’ve had to go through. I have had to come through a lot of adversity. I never dreamed of being a wheelchair tennis player when I was three of four years old. I wanted to be a footballer, then life throws this monster at you. I had to overcome that and all the mental and social struggles that go with it. I found disability sport. I played wheelchair basketball and tennis and created a job for myself. To make a living from a wheelchair sport is rare. We are so lucky in what wheelchair tennis has to offer and now it is being snatched out of my hand through no fault of my own.”

Hewett’s powerful testimony begs the question why the authorities cannot refine the regulations still further to create a category that would allow similarly affected athletes to continue in the sport. “I know what I felt when I first got in that chair. It gave me a new purpose in life. I would hate for a seven-year-old with Perthes today, or another disability, to be denied that opportunity because their condition no longer fits the criteria. It turned my life around. It has been one hell of a ride. That’s where it gets to me, the idea that it might prevent others from doing what I did. It’s not right.”

Ahead of their match in today’s US Open men’s wheelchair singles opening round, we take a closer look at the history between team mates, and rivals, Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid.

Going into today’s contest, their head-to-head record on the international stage is tightly poised at 12-12. Here, we dig deeper into how their careers have developed to date.

Hewett’s first win against his close friend and doubles partner would not be his last of a 2017 which proved to be a huge year for both men.

The duo would be involved in a number of firsts in the wheelchair game. They featured in the first all-Brit men’s singles semi-final at the British Open, thefirst all-Brit men’s singles semi-final at a Grand Slam in the US Open, and Hewett would win his first Grand Slam title at Roland Garros (Reid won two Wimbledon and the Australian Open in 2016).

In total the pair faced off against each other on seven occasions – Reid won three and Hewett won four.