USTA Press Release, August 9, 2020
The USTA announced on Friday the field for the 2020 US Open Wheelchair Competition. The event, in its 13th year, will be held Sept. 10-13 at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y.
The 2020 US Open Wheelchair Competition will feature a men’s, women’s and quad division and will include six events: men’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s singles, women’s doubles, quad singles and quad doubles. Wheelchair tennis follows the same rules as able-bodied tennis, except that the ball can bounce twice.
The field is determined by the March 16, 2020 rankings plus the addition of one wild card per division.
Returning on the men’s side is 2019 US Open wheelchair singles and doubles champion Alfie Hewett from Great Britain, who is vying for his third consecutive singles title. He is joined by Shingo Kunieda of Japan, a 23-time Grand Slam and six-time US Open singles champion. Argentina’s Gustavo Fernandez, comes in as the No. 2 player in the world and will look to claim his first US Open singles trophy. Making his US Open debut as the men’s wild card recipient will be 21-year-old American Casey Ratzlaff, of Wichita, Kan.
In the women’s field, top-ranked Diede de Groot of the Netherlands will look to hoist her third consecutive US Open trophy. World No. 2 Yui Kamiji of Japan, who lost to de Groot in each of the past two US Open Finals, will also be looking to claim her third title. The field will also feature two other past champions, the Netherlands’ Aniek van Koot and Great Britain’s Jordanne Whiley, as well as world No. 11 Dana Mathewson (Orlando, Fla.), who received a wild card.
The quad division features defending champion Andy Lapthorne, of Great Britain, as well as world No. 1 Dylan Alcott, of Australia, who Lapthorne beat in the 2019 final to deny the two-time US Open champion a calendar Grand Slam. Three-time US Open Wheelchair Competition quad singles champion and six-time finalist David Wagner (Chula Vista, Calif.) will also be in the mix for the title. Making his US Open debut and rounding out the quad division is the Netherlands’ Sam Schröder.
The USTA was officially designated by the USOPC as the national governing body for the Paralympic sport of wheelchair tennis in June 2002, becoming the first Olympic national governing body to earn this recognition. As the national governing body for wheelchair tennis, the USTA manages wheelchair tennis in the U.S., including the development of local programming, the sanctioning of tournaments, overseeing rankings, creating and managing a high-performance program for developing elite disabled athletes and selecting teams to compete internationally for the United States.
The wheelchair competition was first added to the US Open in 2005, with only men’s and women’s singles champions being crowned. One of the all-time great wheelchair athletes, the Netherlands’ Esther Vergeer, who won 470 consecutive matches before retiring with the streak intact, won the inaugural women’s event, with Robin Ammerlaan, also of the Netherlands, winning the first men’s title.
