LUCY Shuker and Jordanne Whiley ended their Tokyo 2020 Paralympics with a first women’s doubles silver medal for ParalympicsGB.

It completed Britain’s wheelchair tennis players' second best-ever performance at a Paralympic Games with four medals after Gordon Reid won his all-British men’s singles bronze medal match against Alfie Hewett.

Second seeds Shuker and Whiley had already ensured an upgrade on their London 2012 and Rio 2016 doubles bronze medals before coming up against Dutch top seeds Diede de Groot and Aniek van Koot in Saturday’s gold medal match at Ariake Tennis Park.

The Brits pressurised the Dutch serve early in the contest but found the eight-time Grand Slam-winning partnership a difficult proposition.

They came out for the second set with added aggression, Whiley serving out the opening game convincingly and the Brits took the second game to five deuces. However, De Groot and Van Koot broke to love for a 4-1 lead and went on to claim an eighth successive women’s doubles gold medal for the Netherlands 6-0, 6-1.

Hampshire's Shuker said: “I think it’s almost the dream ending. Coming here, to get gold or silver was the target and we’ve achieved a silver, so you can’t be unhappy with that.

"You can still dream about the gold medal, but I’m really happy with the silver.

"The Dutch were just too strong for us. We made too many errors.

"We tried and we stayed fighting, we stayed together as a team, because you win together and you lose together."

With Whiley having already made a second piece of history by beating Van Koot to win ParalympicsGB’s first women’s singles medal in what she has said will be her fourth and last Paralympics, she said:“I’m proud that we were able to make the final and that we’ve improved on our bronzes.

"They’re just a very strong team, Coming here I was aiming to get on the podium in singles and to at least get a silver in doubles, so I feel like I’ve hit my targets and I’ve played well.

"I’ve done it in style so I can look back on these Games fondly.”