British Open Sees New Wheelchair Tennis Stars

New names made it to the top of the podium this past weekend at the 21st British Open Wheelchair Tennis Championships in Nottingham, Great Britain.

World number four ranked Maikel Scheffers (NED) won the first Super Series Men’s Singles title of his career after contesting a string of Super Series semifinals. Scheffers went on to drop just one more game and wrapped up his first British Open title by beating Ronald Vink, 6-2, 3-6, 6-3. He said that the win has been a long time in the making.

“I have never even got to the semifinals at the British Open before so this is really great,” Scheffers said. “It was a good match and it is always hard playing Ronald Vink as we know each other so well.”

Britain’s Andrew Lapthorne paired up with Sweden’s Johan Andersson to win his first Super Series title in either quad singles or quad doubles competition. The quad doubles final began for second seeds Andersson and Lapthorne as they dropped just the fourth game en route to taking the opening set in 13 minutes against top seeds Sarah Hunter (Canada) and David Wagner (USA). Andersson and Lapthorne found gaps in their opponents’ defense and put together an amazing run of six games in succession to clinch a remarkable victory 6-1, 0-6, 6-3.

Lapthorne was speechless about how he won.

“The first two sets seemed to whizz by and I think they were waiting for us to rediscover our form in the final set, which thankfully we did,” he said.

The number one ranked Esther Vergeer from the Netherlands also proved her status to Wheelchair Tennis fans by winning in the Women’s Singles, beating compatriot Jiske Griffoen in the final 6-1, 6-4.

The British Open took place from 20-25 July at the Nottingham Tennis Centre, and was part of the NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour.