Wheelchair Tennis Stars Set For Gloucester
22nd May 2005by Marshall Thomas
Britain’s leading wheelchair tennis players and some well known names from other Paralympic sports will all be in Gloucester over the coming Bank Holiday Weekend (25th – 28th May) as the city hosts 2007 National Wheelchair Tennis Championships at the Oxstalls Indoor Tennis Centre.
Sixty players are lined up for the Championships, which is being held at the Oxstalls Tennis Centre for the sixth successive year, with the competition for the Men’s and Women’s National titles arguably more open than ever before. Meanwhile, former GB Paralympic wheelchair basketball star and TV presenter Ade Adepitan and former Paralympic 100m champion and London Wheelchair Marathon winner David Holding will contest the B Division Singles and Novice Division Singles title respectively. Among Holding’s competitors in the Novice Division Singles will be Tony Garrett, the BBC’s Disability Sport Executive. Adepitan, Holding and Garret have all taken up the sport in the last year.
In the Men’s Main Draw Singles there will be a new name on the National Championships trophy for the first time in 12 years as 13-times National Champion and British No 1 Jayant Mistry is currently competing in tournaments in Japan and Korea.
Mistry’s absence opens the door to a number of possible new National Champions, including two of Britain’s leading junior players, David Phillipson (Bingham, Nottinghamshire) and Gordon Reid (Helensburgh, Scotland). Phillipson, 18, was Britain’s first Boys Singles finalist at the Wheelchair Tennis Junior Masters in Tarbes in February and has since produced some superb performances on the international NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour, which saw him recently spend several as the British No 2 ranked player behind Mistry after reaching a career high world ranking of No 43.
Meanwhile, 15-year-old Reid, who will be competing in only his third National Championships, won his first senior NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour title earlier this year in Preston. Reid won the Men’s Second Draw Singles at the 2006 British Open in Nottingham, one of just four tournaments in the world to have Super Series status, the equivalent of Grand Slam. That victory was among a host of other impressive junior and senior performances last year and Reid ended 2006 as one of the last 10 nominees for the prestigious BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year Award.
Other contenders for the Men’s National crown will be current British No 2 Alex Jewitt (Dronfield, Derbyshire), who reached his first Men’s Main Draw Singles final at the National Championships last year. Jewitt recently reclaimed the British No 2 ranking from Phillipson and gained a new career high world ranking of No 38 after reaching the final of the Croatia Open in mid-May.
Meanwhile, other challengers to look out for will be another former finalist, Kevin Plowman (Norwood Green, Halifax, Yorkshire) and Shaun Regan (Durleigh, Somerset).
While Mistry will be absent from the Men’s Main Draw Singles, British Women ‘s No 1 Lucy Shuker will also not defend her Women’s Singles title as she competes in Japan and Korea alongside Mistry. So just as Phillipson and Reid provide a strong junior presence in the Men’s Main Draw Singles, Warwickshire 14-year-old Jordanne Whiley (Halesowen) will be a strong contender in the Women’s Singles.
Whiley became Britain’s first Wheelchair Tennis Junior Masters champion in February when she won the Girls Singles in Tarbes, while victory at the North West Challenge in Preston in March and subsequent good performances in the United States have seen the Warwickshire teenager earn a career high world ranking of No 28.
Whiley is currently ranked just one place below British No 2 Susan Paisley (Barton, Lancashire), who has also been in consistent form this year and recently won the Women’s Singles at the Croatia Open. While Whiley and Paisley will bid for a place in their first National Championships final, among their challengers will be Debbie Thomas (Prenton, Wirral), who reached her first final last year when runner-up to Shuker, and Louise Hunt (Wanborough, Wiltshire).
Last year Hunt became one of the two youngest players to win a National Championships title when she partnered Shuker to victory in the Women’s Doubles, but as well as being a force to be reckoned with in singles the Wiltshire player has also forged a strong doubles partnership with Whiley in recent years and in February they won the Girls Doubles at the Wheelchair Tennis Junior Masters in Tarbes.
The Quad Singles will also be fiercely contested and defending champion Chris Johnson (Waterlooville, Hampshire) will face strong opposition from Eastbourne’s Adam Field, Liverpool’s former National Quad champion Jamie Burdekin and Macclesfield’s Antony Coterill. Field, Johnson and Burdekin are all currently separated by just two world raking places inside world’s top 15. Burdekin and Cotterill have both gained tournament wins on the international NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour already this year, while shortly after last year’s National Championships Johnson and Field were the winner runner-up respectively in the Quad Singles at the prestigious ITF 1 Series Czech Open.
Also contesting the Quad Singles will be local player Kathy Hancock (Evesham, Worcestershire), one of three players who train at the Oxstalls Indoor Tennis who will be competing in this year’s National Championships at the venue. Hancock is the only female player in Britain currently competing in the Quad Division, for players affected in three or more limbs.
At the 2004 National Championships local player Trevor Mayo (Barnwood, Gloucester) gained victory at his home tennis centre in the Novice Division Singles. Mayo has since progressed through the sport and contests the Men’s Second Draw Singles at this year's National Championships, while the local entries also include Gill James (Yate, Gloucestershire), who will contest the Women’s Singles.
As well as hosting training sessions with Hancock, Mayo and James, in addition, the Tennis Centre also hosts regular wheelchair tennis sessions for beginner players (for further information, please contact Oxstalls Indoor Tennis Centre on 01452 396969).
Wheelchair tennis is unique within disability sport in that players are categorised according to their tennis playing ability as opposed to being classified according to their functional, while the only difference between wheelchair tennis and able-bodied tennis is that wheelchair players are allowed two bounces of the ball
The National Wheelchair Tennis Championships is supported by The British Tennis Foundation as well as Gloucester City Council and Slazenger.
Entry for spectators at the 2007 National Wheelchair Tennis Championships is FREE throughout the tournament, and visitors can expect to see an extremely high level of tennis from some of the best players in the world in their respective fields.