Gordon Reid: One Match From a Wimbledon Final

This story originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.

There will be a British man contesting a Wimbledon final on Sunday — that much we can already say for sure. There may well be two — that responsibility lies with Andy Murray — but with a pair of wheelchair doubles players facing off in the semi-finals, it's a cert that the crowd will have a homegrown star to cheer.

What luxury. You don't know you're born, SW19.

Gordon Reid — ranked number three in the world and a few weeks removed from winning the French Open — is the more fancied of the two. He's got the big match knowledge, almost a decade's experience, and a partner who's won multiple titles in SW19. He will face fellow countryman Alfie Hewett, who pairs with Joachim Gerard for a spot in Sunday's final.

In terms of the tournament's structure, the wheelchair category at Wimbledon is quite different from the standard men's and women's championships. But the game itself is almost identical; for Reid that was important to a rapid adaptation to the sport after falling ill as a 12-year-old.

"I started playing when I was about six, near my parents house in Helensburgh, Scotland. My brother and sister both played as well," he told VICE Sports.

"In 2004 I was diagnosed with transverse myelitis, a disease that affects the nerves in your spine. I was in hospital for six months, paralysed from the waist down. Eventually I regained some feeling in my legs, but I still need a wheelchair to play tennis."

Which is what he did. Almost immediately after leaving hospital, Reid was playing again.

"When I got out I tried wheelchair tennis. There are a lot similarities — the rules are exactly the same, except we get two bounces of the ball. Everything else is the same.

"And because I'd already played before, when I stated I had a big part of the game — the major difference is movement. It's extremely difficult to get around the court; after the first time, my hands were wrecked!

"From there it was a gradual thing. I won a local tournament in the novice division, then went to a national tournament. The Tennis Foundation invited me to training camps. But I never thought about turning pro.

Reid was already attracting press attention as a 15-year-old, and his rise became yet more rapid when, in 2008, he was chosen to represent Britain at the Beijing Paralympics.

"It was like leading a double life: I'd be in school with my mates one day, then travelling the world playing tennis.

He laughs about how short the Paralympic experience turned out to be.

"In Beijing, I played the world number two and lost in the first round! But the experience was worth it — it's the biggest event in the world for disabled sport — and it helped when I went to London 2012. I had that experience — living in the athlete's village, the travel, all of it.

"These days I'm a full-time athlete. I train five or six days a week and I'm travelling half the year. The sport's grown very quickly, and [London] 2012 helped a lot with that. Channel 4's coverage meant a lot of people saw [wheelchair tennis]. I was playing in front thousands on centre court. And it's still growing and getting better. More and more people are coming to see us.

"The standard is improving, too — more money is coming in through sponsors and TV. In this county, we're really luck to have really good support from UK Sport and the Tennis Foundation. It's still a struggle to find private sponsorship. But the more it grows, the more support we can get."

It's easy to make the comparison between Reid and his megastar fellow countryman — it is not difficult to dig up headlines such as 'Gordon Reid is the wheelchair Andy Murray'. It's not unreasonable: both men are Scottish, both are British number one, and both are ranked number three in the world. The crucial difference is the money that exists in Murray's area of the game.

And they will have very different Wimbledon experiences, too. While Murray will need to play six matches to reach the men's final, Reid is already within site of a place in Sunday's title match.

"It's just the top four doubles teams in he world," Reid explains. "So it's really intense! There's no easing yourself in. Guys like Murray and Djokovic, in the early rounds they can ease themselves into the tournament. But we're straight in against the toughest opponents."

And it all happens in just three days, with the semi-finals taking place on Friday and Saturday, before Sunday's final.

But crucially, Reid and partner Michael Jeremiasz will not play the abolsute toughest opponents in the semi-final. Having been seeded, they have avoided the reigning champions, Stephane Houdet and Shingo Kunieda.

Reid will nevertheless be wary of Hewett, who he partnered to win the men's doubles at the Queensland Wheelchair Tennis Open earlier this year. However, he is optimistic that his fifth Wimbledon can yield a first final appearance.

"I'm really excited. Michael and I played together before, but this is our first Grand Slam. In fact, I was meant to play with him last year but he was injured. He's won Wimbledon before, we get on great and work really well together.

"I've been watching the qualifying events and getting really up for it. You get these two weeks in the summer where people absolutely love tennis, and it's great to be a part of that."