Two-time Paralympic quad singles champion Peter Norfolk OBE heads a host of world top 10 ranked players at the 15th Nottingham Indoor, part of the NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour.
There is a strong British contingent among a field of 70 for the final British-based world ranking event of 2009, which gets underway on Thursday, 29th October, at the City of Nottingham Tennis Centre.
Norfolk is among eight players entered for this week’s event that are contesting in their last major tournament before next month’s NEC Wheelchair Tennis Singles Masters in Amsterdam, the year-end highlight for the world’s best players.
A week on from collecting his OBE from Her Majesty the Queen at Buckingham Palace, Hampshire-based Norfolk returns to the City of Nottingham Tennis almost three months after hitting the winning shot in the World Team Cup, which saw Great Britain’s quad team win their version of the Davis and Fed Cups of wheelchair tennis.
Norfolk bids for a fourth Nottingham Indoor quad title this week as he warms up for next month’s NEC Singles Masters, where a second Masters title would earn the Briton the year-end world No.1 quad singles ranking for the fifth time in seven seasons.
The Netherlands’ Dorrie Timmermans-van Hall and Israel’s Boaz Kramer provide the overseas challenge to the largely British entry for the quad singles.
World No.8 Timmermans bids to improve on the quarter-final berth she gained in the 2007 Nottingham Indoor, while world No.12 Kramer will hope for a big improvement in his fortunes after going out in the first round on his two previous visits to the Nottingham Indoor in 2005 and 2006.
Scheffers and world No.4 Stefan Olsson have won the last two Nottingham Indoor men’s main draw singles titles and are seeded to go head-to-head in this year’s final, but Dutch world No.9 Ronald Vink and world No.11 Frederic Cattaneo of France are sure to provide stiff opposition.
Meanwhile, Scotland’s 18-year-old British No.1 and world No.16 Gordon Reid, a semi-finalist in last year’s Nottingham Indoor, will be out to try and upset those players seeded above him.
Nottinghamshire’s British No.2 David Phillipson, a former winner of the men’s second draw singles and the men’s main draw consolation singles is another who will be out to try and upset the seedings.
The Bingham 20-year-old world No.24 missed last year’s Nottingham Indoor after surgery and a good performance this year will boost his chances of improving on his career high world ranking of No.23 by the end of the season.
Article by Marshall Thomas