US Open Doubles Wheelchair Draw Size, Adds Juniors

By Chris Oddo | @TheFanChild | Thursday, June 23, 2022

The US Open is stepping up its dedication to wheelchair tennis.

The USTA right now introduced that the US Open Wheelchair Championships will develop in dimension, with expanded fields within the males’s and girls’s divisions and the introduction of the inaugural US Open Junior Wheelchair Championship.

In line with the US Open, the rise in subject dimension for the boys’s and girls’s divisions is the single-largest draw growth in Grand Slam wheelchair historical past. Upfront of the 2021 US Open, the quad draw was doubled in dimension, rising from 4 to eight opponents.

The match has elevated the scale the of the ladies’s and males’s singles and doubles attracts from eight singles gamers and 4 doubles groups to new draw sizes of 16 girls, 16 males, eight girls’s doubles groups and eight males’s doubles groups; there may be additionally and the introduction of US Open Junior Wheelchair Championships with draw sizes of eight ladies and eight boys. Moreover, the USTA just lately turned the primary nationwide governing physique on the earth to totally combine skilled wheelchair competitors operations inside its able-bodied Professional Tennis Operations equal.

This summer season might be a historic one for wheelchair tennis.

The 2022 US Open Wheelchair Championships offered by Deloitte will boast the most important participant subject in Grand Slam historical past and have the first-ever junior competitors.

— US Open Tennis (@usopen) June 22, 2022

“The growth of the wheelchair match on the US Open and the addition of the inaugural US Open Junior Wheelchair Championship are inspirational enhancements to one of many biggest occasions in all of sports activities,” stated Billie Jean King, the previous US Open champion and tennis and rights activist. “These new alternatives present development at a number of ranges, permitting extra gamers to compete within the US Open and offering extra alternatives for followers to take pleasure in world class tennis.”

“It’s wonderful information on how the US Open is rising and making the hassle to proceed the event of wheelchair tennis,” stated legendary Esther Vergeer, 48-time Grand Slam champion and seven-time Paralympic gold medalist. “What can be wonderful is to see the standard of play and degree rising, so it fits to have this chance created. It’s nice that the US Open needs to tackle this duty. What can be unimaginable is the wonderful alternative for the juniors to play in such an setting. That’s the finest inspiration and motivation to go and get the perfect out of your self.”