Development of Wheelchair Tennis (Part 1)

Wheelchair tennis first became an event at the Australian Open in 2002 and has since gained more and more attention. Today, all four Grand Slams have wheelchair tennis events, which has promoted the development of tennis and enhanced social tolerance for people with disabilities.

In 2002, the Australian Wheelchair Tennis Open was held in Melbourne. This event is not small in scale, with international ranking points and prize money. The scale of the men's singles is 45, the women's singles is 22, and there are events for athletes with both upper and lower limb disabilities. The competition was held in Melbourne Park, which is also the venue for the Australian Open.

Since 2002, the wheelchair Australian Open has finally been included in the Australian Open and held during the Australian Open. At the Australian Open that year, Hewitt tried to win the local Grand Slam, Clijsters reached the semifinals, and Capriati won the last Grand Slam championship. Wheelchair tennis became part of the four Grand Slams for the first time.

Mistry, 57, is the only British person to have participated in the 2002 wheelchair Australian Open. He said: "It was exciting to be able to participate in the Grand Slam. But to be honest, this feeling didn't last long because there were already quite a lot of wheelchair tennis events at the time, and we were not sure how long the Grand Slam organizing committee would be able to support us."

In the 2017 Australian Open, the wheelchair tennis final was held on the center court. After that, the wheelchair tennis finals of all Grand Slam events were able to be held on the center court. By 2019, all four Grand Slam events had set up events for athletes with upper and lower limb disabilities to participate.

Later, many famous tennis events also realized that wheelchair athletes and able-bodied athletes fought side by side in exhibition matches. Mistry participated in the Miami Open. He said: "It was a great honor to be invited to participate in this event. Before the exhibition match, I was in the same lounge with the Williams sisters, Agassi, and Sampras! I was absolutely in awe of those guys."
TOPMEDI will attend two exhibitions in September and October. Welcome to learn about our tennis wheelchairs online or offline.