World No. 1 players Oda and de Groot looking to create more history at US Open

World No. 1 players Tokito Oda and Diede de Groot look to create more history at the 2023 US Open Wheelchair Championships, which began in New York on 5 September.

The final Grand Slam of the season, the US Open became the first of the four majors to feature draw sizes of 16 players for each of the men’s, women’s and quad singles. The expanded draw size for the quad division in New York will see new nations added to list of those countries that have contested wheelchair draws at the majors.

Unstoppable Oda 

Oda, who became the youngest man to win a Grand Slam singles title at this year’s French Open, is gunning for the spotlight in New York, where he could become the youngest man to win a US Open singles title in any discipline.

So far this year Oda has contested each of the Australian Open, Roland Garros and Wimbledon men’s singles finals against Alfie Hewett, succeeding Hewett as the sport’s youngest men’s singles world No. 1 following his victory at the French Open in June.

He will begin his quest to add the US Open title with a first-round match against two-time champion Stephane Houdet, while Hewett will face Tom Egberink, the player the British athlete beat in the quarter-finals last year on his way to his third US Open singles title.

Elsewhere in the men’s singles draw, first-round match-ups include world No. 3 Gustavo Fernandez’s latest meeting with world No. 5 Joachim Gerard, while fourth seed Martin de la Puente will play Japan’s Takashi Sanada.

De Groot eyes third successive calendar Grand Slam 

While Hewett’s singles record in New York is impressive, Diede de Groot’s win-loss is even better, having also made her US Open debut in 2017.

De Groot has only failed to lift the women’s singles title once – on her debut, when she finished runner-up to world No.2 Yui Kamiji – while she has also won five of the six doubles finals she has contested.

Unbeaten in 118 matches since the start of the 2021 Australian Open, the five-time US Open champion will bid to complete an unprecedented third successive calendar Grand Slam. In 2021, she became the first female wheelchair player to win the Golden Slam after her fourth US Open title came just a week after she won the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic gold medal.

De Groot’s 2023 US Open campaign will begin against Pauline Deroulede. Kamiji will begin her bid for a third US Open women’s singles title with a contest against USA’s Dana Mathewson.

Vink and Schroder head record Grand Slam quad draw

While Oda and Hewett, the world’s top two ranked players, have contested all three Grand Slam men’s singles finals so far this season, with world No.2 Hewett winning the first of those title deciders in Australia, a similar rivalry is even longer established at the top of the quad singles rankings.

Sam Schroder and Niels Vink have contested five of the last six Grand Slam quad singles finals between them, and while Schroder returns to New York three years on from winning his first Grand Slam singles title at the 2020 US Open, Vink is the defending champion.