Top Brits, Paris Paralympic hopefuls head entry as Bolton indoor Wheelchair Tennis returns for the 10th year!
Greg Slade claimed the first two of what could be several British titles at Bolton Arena this week after dominating today’s quad singles and doubles finals at Bolton Indoor ITF 3 Wheelchair Tennis Tournament.
The LTA has brought international wheelchair tennis back to Bolton Arena for the 10th year this month, with back-to-back world ranking tournaments reaching their halfway stage with the conclusion of the ITF 3 event, where Korean top seed Ho Won Im won the men’s singles title for the first time after beating Guilhem Laget of France 6-1, 6-1. USA’s Dana Mathewson wrapped up the women’s singles title for the second year in a row after beating Chinese top seed Zhenzhen Zhu 6-4, 6-4.
Slade won nine of the last 10 games in the quad singles final to beat Brazilian third seed Leandro Pena 6-3, 6-0 and claim his fifth international singles title and his first on British soil. Having beaten Slovakian second seed Tomas Masaryk on his way to the singles final Slade then partnered Masaryk to the quad doubles title after the second seeds beat top seeds Pena and Ymanitu Silva 6-4, 6-1.
Slade, who is among the players supported by the LTA’s Wheelchair Pro Scholarship Programme, said:
“I’ve had some great results this week and to win all your matches at a tournament, you can’t do much more, so I’m very happy. I got to the semi-finals of this ITF 3 last year and then the final of the ITF 2, so I’ve got a lot of points to defend now this week at the ITF 2. To win the ITF 3 takes the pressure off a bit and there’s definitely something different about winning a tournament on home soil. It feels good.“
Britain’s 17-time Grand Slam champion Andy Lapthorne is one of several top 10 players entered for the ITF 2 tournament, which begins on Wednesday. The three-time Bolton Indoor quad singles champion lines up alongside Slade, with whom he won the quad doubles title in Bolton in 2022 and who he beat in last year’s ITF 2 quad singles final.
Fellow Brit and three-time Paralympic medallist Lucy Shuker joins the likes of world No.5 Zhu and world No.7 Mathewson in the women’s singles. Cornelia Oosthuizen, Abbie Breakwell and Ruby Bishop complete a complement of all four of Britain’s leading women’s players challenging for the ITF 2 title.
British No.3 Ben Bartram and British No.4 Dahnon Ward line up in a strong entry for the men’s singles and doubles alongside the likes of France’s world No.9 Stephane Houdet and Tokyo Paralympic silver medallist Tom Egberink.
It’s the fourth year that the ITF 3 and ITF 2 tournaments on the International Tennis Federation’s UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour have been held in successive weeks in Bolton with more than 80 players from 28 counties contending for the men, women’s and quad singles and doubles titles across both tournaments. This year’s tournaments come a little over halfway through the qualification window for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Tennis Event, giving the players opportunity to accumulate valuable world ranking points.
