Canada's Rob Shaw takes silver in thrilling wheelchair tennis final at Parapan Am Games

A dramatic wheelchair tennis final resulted in silver for Canada's Rob Shaw.

Shaw, the defending Parapan Am Games champion, fell in three sets (3-6, 7-5, 4-6) to Chile's Francisco Cayulef  (6-3, 5-7, 6-4) on Friday in Santiago.

The clay-court men's quad singles match, played in scorching heat, featured plenty of back and forth. At different points, Shaw, a co-flag-bearer at the opening ceremony for Canada, fought off match point in the second set and fended off Cayulef while serving for the match in the final set. 

But the Chilean, with the home crowd behind him, was able to regroup and break Shaw moments later to clinch the victory.

The competitors embraced at the net soon after the thrilling match ended.

WATCH | Shaw bested in gritty 3-set wheelchair tennis final, claims silver:

Shaw, the 33-year-old from North Bay, Ont., was the first Canadian to win a multi-sport medal in singles competition when he took gold four years ago.

He's now repeated the feat, rebounding from a Round of 16 loss at the Tokyo Paralympics to do it.

Meanwhile, Canada's men's wheelchair basketball team will not get its desired rematch against the U.S.

The Canadian squad fell 64-53 to Colombia in the semifinals, dousing hope of a third straight gold-medal final against the Americans. Canada lost each of the previous two in 2015 in Toronto and in 2019 in Lima.

Instead, it will be Colombia, which took bronze in 2019, vying for gold on Saturday.

It was more of the same in the third quarter, with the Canadians continuing to connect on open looks as Colombia opened a 16-point lead. 

Canada cut its deficit to seven points late in the fourth quarter to make things interesting, but it proved too little, too late.

Patrick Anderson, competing in his