2024 ITF Wheelchair Tour

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

2024 ITF Wheelchair Tour

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

The entries are announced for the Wheelchair Masters, taking place in mid November

www.itftennis.com/en/news-and-media/articles/entries-announced-for-2024-wheelchair-tennis-masters-events/

Mens singles - all the top 8 are in, including Alfie and Gordon

Womens singles - no Brits and world number one, Dierde de Groot is not playing - she lost the Paralympic Final and I think that loss hit her hard

Quad singles - all the top 8 are, including Andy

Mens doubles - Alfie and Gordon play (together obviously). 10 of the top 11 players are in but a very much outside German and Israeli pairs of entries make up the field

Womens doubles - most of the top players in but again, surprise final pairs from NL and NL/Ger - no Brits

Quad doubles - Andy and Greg Slade in the field, well done Greg. Andy is with Donald Ramphadi, with whom he won the French last season. Greg partners American David Wagner

-- Edited by JonH comes home on Thursday 3rd of October 2024 11:39:36 PM

9vicman · Satellite level

Diede de Groot posted the following on her social channels:

Over the years I have always worked very hard to keep my body and mind in optimal shape and this has brought me a lot in tennis and beyond. Unfortunately, I have been struggling with severe osteoarthritis in my hip for almost two years, which causes pain in my daily life. Surgery is something I have been postponing for a long time, but postponing is no longer an option. I will be undergoing surgery in the coming period and unfortunately I will not be able to play tennis for the time beingThat means there will be no tennis performance updates on my social media channels in the coming period, of course I do occasionally provide an update on the progress of the rehabilitation.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

ALthough there are a couple of events taking place currently in the Wheelchair Tour, they are v small and largely with domestic players taking part (eg womens Japan Open is all Japanese, Brazil event is all Brazilian pretty much).

Seems a shame that there is such a gap for the top players before the Masters takes place in a few weeks time. There is a Series 2 event in France in the week before the Masters, the Open Paratennis du Loiret in a part of Orleans; I imagine many of the Masters contenders will aim to play there in order to get some match practice in ahead of heading to the Netherlands for the Masters

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

A series 3 event takes place in Taiwan starting tomorrow; several Brits playing including Ben Bartram, Andrew Penney, Abbie Breakwell, Ruby Bishop, Cornelia Oosthuizen and Greg Slade.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Nice interview with Alfie

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/tennis/articles/cy43xnnx301o

Not sure why they are carrying this, as in if it is linked to something, but nice nonetheless

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

In a small event Futures in France this week, we had an all British womens semi as 52 year old Caroline McDonald , unseeded, beat 58 year old Helen Bond. Kudos to Caroline, and good luck in the final versus the top seed.

I guess the term futures wasnt aimed at Caroline and Helen but well done for doing so well - Caroline is ranked circa 76 in the world and rising!

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Andrew Penney, Ben Bartram and Cornelia Oosthuizen all into the semis of the Series 3 event this week in Taipei. This finishes Tuesday and then straight on to another Series 3 level event in Taipei also.

All the big names who are in the Masters are keeping their powders dry for now, perhaps to play in the French event the week before the Masters.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Ben Bartram and Ruby Bishop won doubles titles in the first of the two series 3 events in Taiwan, the Taiwan Open.

A same level event kicks off tomorrow in Taiwan with much the same cast of players in singles and doubles. In mens singles, Andrew Penney and Ben Bartram are seeded 1 and 2, in womens Cornelia Oosthuizen is seeded 2 and Ruby and Abbie Breakwell also play, and Greg Slade is seeded in the quad event.

All of those played singles in the first event, but didnt get to the sharp end and finals in singles, despite the doubles success (Greg was RU in quad doubles).

Good luck starting tomorrow!

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Good week in Taipei in the KAOHSIUNG OPEN, as Greg Slade takes the quad singles (seeded 3) and doubles also. Ben Bartram took the mens singles title, seeded 2, with Cornelia Oosthuizen taking RU spot in the womens singles.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Looking again at the Wheelchair Masters entries, I am interested in how the doubles field is made up.

The singles fields include the top 8 in each category. One would expect similar for doubles, although in both there will always be the odd injury or personal reason not to play

In the mens doubles, the top 6 pairs comprise players in the top 16 in the ranks, so all is good there. But pairings 7 and 8 are very left field

7 Anthony Dittmar (GER) [47]
Christoph Wilke (GER) [46]
[93]

8 Luca Acra [97]
Silviu Culea [147]
[244]

It is similar in the 6 pair womens field, the final pairing has two players ranked well below 30 in the world, suggesting a lot have been by passed to reach down that far. The quad field isnt too bad although some have clearly been by passed there as well

www.itftennis.com/media/13145/wheelchair-tennis-masters-2024-entry-list-rankings-07102024-1.pdf

So, they have had to go down to rankings 46, 47, 97 and 147 to fill out the field. Culea is also 51 years old, so not as if he is a young player with lots of potential as a sort of wild card.

It implies that to get the final 4 players (or two pairs) they have had to sift through 130 or so players to find them; if asked, I would have thought players like Ben Bartram, Andrew Penney etc from the UK or similar levels from other countries would surely wish to play in the Masters?

Maybe I am just not privvy to how they work out the field, anyone got any ideas - or did 130 players turn them down and this is what they ended up with to close the entries off?

-- Edited by JonH comes home on Tuesday 29th of October 2024 02:05:00 PM

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

This weekend is the Abingdon Futures event in , well, Abingdon.

Decent entry with good chances of British winners- equivalent of ITF M/W 15/25 events.

www.itftennis.com/en/tournament/abingdon-futures-wheelchair-tennis-tournament/gbr/2024/wc-itffs-gbr-2024-001/

In France on Tuesday, the series 2 event starts and will feature many of the masters participants in their first outing since the Paralympics

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

In the Open de Loiret event this coming week, we have:

Quad - none of the 8 masters qualifiers play, Greg Slade is representing GB in the 8 player field

Womens - 3 of the top 8 play, in a 14 player field we have Lucy Shuker and Cornelia Oosthuizen playing from GB

Mens - 2 of the top 8 play, in a 32 field. GB men are Andrew Penney, Dahnon Ward (who won the Aldershot event this week) and Robert Teague

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

JonH comes home wrote:
The entries are announced for the Wheelchair Masters, taking place in mid November

www.itftennis.com/en/news-and-media/articles/entries-announced-for-2024-wheelchair-tennis-masters-events/

Mens singles - all the top 8 are in, including Alfie and Gordon

Womens singles - no Brits and world number one, Dierde de Groot is not playing - she lost the Paralympic Final and I think that loss hit her hard

Quad singles - all the top 8 are, including Andy

Mens doubles - Alfie and Gordon play (together obviously). 10 of the top 11 players are in but a very much outside German and Israeli pairs of entries make up the field

Womens doubles - most of the top players in but again, surprise final pairs from NL and NL/Ger - no Brits

Quad doubles - Andy and Greg Slade in the field, well done Greg. Andy is with Donald Ramphadi, with whom he won the French last season. Greg partners American David Wagner

-- Edited by JonH comes home on Thursday 3rd of October 2024 11:39:36 PM

Andrew Penney is now into the mens doubles field, pairing with Dutch player Robin Groenewoud. There are 10 of the top 16 mens doubles players making up the top 5 pairs in this event and then 3 relative scratch pairings/loely ranked pairs, incl Andrew and his partner. Not sure they have played together before but good luck to them and well done on getting in.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

JonH comes home wrote:
In the Open de Loiret event this coming week, we have:

Quad - none of the 8 masters qualifiers play, Greg Slade is representing GB in the 8 player field

Womens - 3 of the top 8 play, in a 14 player field we have Lucy Shuker and Cornelia Oosthuizen playing from GB

Mens - 2 of the top 8 play, in a 32 field. GB men are Andrew Penney, Dahnon Ward (who won the Aldershot event this week) and Robert Teague

The mens field has landed at 24 and we have just Andrew and Dahnon in the draw - and they play each other!

Action starts today