Top wheelchair tennis names head to Nottingham

“I encourage all local sports fans, especially anyone who has never seen wheelchair tennis before, to come along and cheer us on and they are guaranteed to see exciting sport.”

Defending champions Maikel Scheffers, Jiske Griffioen and Andy Lapthorne are among the world top-10 ranked players that will line up for the men’s, women’s and quad singles at the 2013 Nottingham Indoor Wheelchair Tennis Tournament, which takes place this week (23-27 October) at the Nottingham Tennis Centre in Great Britain.

Dutch world No. 3 Maikel Scheffers and British world No. 4 Gordon Reid head the entries for the men’s singles after beating each other in the last two finals in Nottingham. H

However, even more is at stake this year for Reid, Scheffers and the other 66 players entered for this year’s tournament, after the event was upgraded to ITF 1 Series status in 2013 and therefore carries more world ranking points than ever before.

Reid will arrive in Nottingham on the back of winning the first ITF 1 Series men’s singles title of his career just two weeks ago in France, where he defeated the world’s top three ranked players in successive days to earn a victory that resulted in him returning to the world’s top four.

British No. 2 Marc McCarroll and local Nottinghamshire player David Phillipson are among the other leading home contenders for the men’s singles and are among the eight Brits playing in Nottingham who have all qualified for the NEC Wheelchair Tennis Masters and the ITF Wheelchair Doubles Masters.

The year-end championships for the world’s top players take place in Mission Viejo, California just two weeks after the Nottingham Indoor.

Griffioen won her second Nottingham Indoor title in 2012 before going on to win her first NEC Wheelchair Tennis Masters title and the Dutch world No. 3 joins German world No. 2 Sabine Ellerbrock and Britain’s world No. 7 Jordanne Whiley and world No. 8 Lucy Shuker among a high class entry for the women’s singles.

All four players have won the Nottingham Indoor title in the last five years.

World No. 3 Lapthorne heads the field for the quad event, having won his first Nottingham Indoor title in 2012. This year his main opposition includes fellow Brits Antony Cotterill and Adam Field, Italy’s Antonio Raffaele and Canada’s Adrian Dieleman. They are all among a total of 18 Nottingham Indoor entrants scheduled to go on to contest the Masters events next month.

“The last time I played here in Nottingham at the British Open in July I beat a higher ranked player and at last year’s Nottingham Indoor I had a really close semi-final, so I definitely love playing in my home town and hopefully there will be lots of local support for myself and the other Brits again,” Phillipson said.

“I encourage all local sports fans, especially anyone who has never seen wheelchair tennis before, to come along and cheer us on and they are guaranteed to see exciting sport.”