Norfolk Seals 5th British Open Singles Title

Britain’s Peter Norfolk won his fifth British Open Wheelchair Tennis Championships quad singles title on Saturday, 23 July, at Nottingham Tennis Centre during the fifth day of the penultimate Super Series tournament on the 2011 NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour.

Norfolk defeated USA’s David Wagner 6-4, 5-7, 6-3 and thus closed the gap on him as world no. 1 in next week’s world rankings published by the International Tennis Federation (ITF).

“There’s always more pressure at my home tournament, especially against David, but I was very happy with the way I played today and happy with my new racket and the new shots that I’ve been working on,” said Norfolk. “I’ve been improving each match I’ve played this week, but David played very well today and made it hard for me.”

While Norfolk won his fifth British Open title, the remarkable Esther Vergeer clinched her eleventh successive British Open women’s singles title after easing to a 6-1 6-2 victory over her fellow Dutchwoman and world No. 2 Jiske Griffioen. Griffioen engaged Vergeer in a string of long rallies as the two players from Woerden in the Netherlands contested the final for the second year in a row, but ultimately Vergeer proved too strong as she took her incredible winning streak to 422 matches.

The men’s single final saw Dutch world No. 2 Maikel Scheffers retain his men’s title after he beat first-time British Open finalist and world No. 7 Stefan Olsson of Sweden 6-3 6-0. Scheffers secured the first breakthrough of the match when he opened up a 4-2 lead after Olsson sent a forehand just long over the Dutchman’s baseline. Top seed Scheffers then won eight of the next nine games to wrap up his title defence.

In the men’s doubles final Dutch top seeds Maikel Scheffers and Ronald Vink repeated their win over French Paralympic champions Stephane Houdet and Michael Jeremiasz in the Wimbledon men’s doubles final earlier this month. Scheffers and Vink clinched their first British Open doubles title together after a 6-4, 7-6 victory, having come from 4-2 down in the second set tie-break.

While Norfolk came out on top in the quad’s singles final against David Wagner, the quad’s doubles final saw Wagner and his partner Nick Taylor win against Norfolk and Andrew Lapthorne 6-1, 7-6.

The women’s main draw doubles final featured both of last year’s champions, Annick Sevenans of Belgium and Aniek van Koot of the Netherlands, but this year the two players were on different sides of the net and it was van Koot that managed to share in the title for the second successive year.

Van Koot partnered women’s singles runner-up Jiske Griffioen to victory, the all-Dutch top seeds defeating Marjolein Buis of the Netherlands and Sevenans 6-3, 6-4 to add the British Open title to the Florida Open and BNP Paribas French Open Super Series titles that had already won this season.

The 22nd British Open was contested by 110 players from 22 countries and was supported by Nottingham City Council and Highland Spring.