{"id":127004,"date":"2025-09-07T17:14:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T17:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/127004\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T17:14:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T17:14:08","slug":"wheelchair-tennis-is-on-the-rise-its-next-move-is-integrating-with-more-atp-and-wta-events","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/127004\/","title":{"rendered":"Wheelchair tennis is on the rise. Its next move is integrating with more ATP and WTA events"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 All of the U.S. Open\u2019s wheelchair champions<\/a> have been crowned, to thunderous cheers from fans and supporters. Coming away from this year\u2019s tournament, one thing is for sure \u2014 wheelchair tennis is on the rise.<\/p>\n

In 2022, the men\u2019s and women\u2019s draws at the U.S. Open<\/a> each doubled in size, from eight players apiece to 16. The quad division, for players with loss of function in at least three limbs, has doubled twice since 2020 and now sits at 16 players across singles and doubles.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s been on an upward trajectory in New York and worldwide. And now, more changes are coming to the wheelchair tour.<\/p>\n

Starting next year, a \u201csignificant number\u201d of wheelchair tournaments will be taking place alongside ATP and WTA events, the wheelchair tour announced in July. It’s an integrated format that currently only exists at the four Grand Slams and a handful of larger tournaments throughout the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019ll be huge,\u201d No. 2 men\u2019s wheelchair player Alfie Hewett<\/a> said about the change. \u201cThe exposure that wheelchair tennis can get at events like an ATP or a WTA is massive, and can really bring in a complete new audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

The wheelchair tour operates similarly to its ATP and WTA counterparts, with its top players playing a long tournament circuit in cities across the globe, but officially lining up with its men\u2019s and women\u2019s tennis counterparts will mean substantially more eyes for the growing sport.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe quality of performance is getting higher,\u201d said Yui Kamiji, the U.S. Open women\u2019s wheelchair champion. \u201cSo hopefully people enjoy to watch and come back again and again in the near future.\u201d<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll be spending more time with those in the ATP and WTA, who are excited to have more tournaments in common.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a huge fan of wheelchair. Amazing, amazing athletes,\u201d said Jannik Sinner<\/a>, who participated in a wheelchair tennis demonstration with Hewett at the Miami Open last year. \u201cI hope in this sport, wheelchair gets as big as it can. It\u2019s amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The USTA, the governing body of American tennis and organizer of the U.S. Open, has long been a champion of wheelchair tennis. It made the U.S. Open the first Grand Slam to introduce junior wheelchair competition, back in 2022, and has facilitated the inclusion of wheelchair tennis at a collegiate level.<\/p>\n

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This year the USTA was recognized with the ITF Brad Parks Award for Contribution to Global Growth of Wheelchair Tennis.<\/p>\n

Moving forward, players on the wheelchair tour are excited for continued growth at the U.S. Open and beyond.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always want more. We always want to try and be playing in front of as many people as possible,\u201d said Gordon Reid, the No. 5 men’s wheelchair player. \u201cHopefully we can all move in the right direction together.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP tennis: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/tennis<\/a><\/p>\n

Alyce Brown, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 All of the U.S. Open\u2019s wheelchair champions have been crowned, to thunderous cheers from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127005,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[6733,49,48,82,593,69755,47612,14180,4306],"class_list":{"0":"post-127004","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-atp","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tennis","13":"tag-wheelchair-player","14":"tag-wheelchair-tennis","15":"tag-womens-tennis","16":"tag-wta"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}