Britain’s Peter Norfolk won his fifth British Open Wheelchair Tennis Championships quad singles title on Saturday at Nottingham Tennis Centre during the fifth day of the penultimate Super Series tournament on the 2011 NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour.
Norfolk, who went into the final world ranked No. 2, will close the gap on American world No. 1 David Wagner in next week’s world rankings published by the International Tennis Federation after defeating Wagner 6-4, 5-7, 6-3.
“There’s always more pressure at my home tournament, especially against David, but I was very happy with the way I played today and happy with my new racket and the new shots that I’ve been working on,” said Norfolk, who came back from 2-0 down in both of the opening two sets before opening up a 5-0 third and final set lead en route to victory.
“I’ve been improving each match I’ve played this week, but David played very well today and made it hard for me.”
While Norfolk won his fifth British Open title, the remarkable Esther Vergeer clinched her eleventh successive British Open women’s singles title after easing to a 6-1, 6-2 victory over her fellow Dutchwoman and world No. 2 Jiske Griffioen. Griffioen engaged Vergeer in a string of long rallies as the two players from Woerden in the Netherlands contested the final for the second year in a row, but ultimately Vergeer proved too strong as she took her incredible winning streak to 422 matches.
The third title to be decided in Nottingham on Saturday saw Dutch top seeds Maikel Scheffers and Ronald Vink repeat their win over French Paralympic champions Stephane Houdet and Michael Jeremiasz in the Wimbledon men’s doubles final earlier this month. Scheffers and Vink clinched their first British Open doubles title together after a 6-4, 7-6(5) victory, having come from 4-2 down in the second set tie-break.
After beating Wagner in the quad singles final, Norfolk will be on the opposite side of the net to Wagner again on Sunday in the Anglo-American quad doubles final. Second seeds Norfolk and Andrew Lapthorne beat Jamie Burdekin and John Parfitt 6-1, 6-1 in their all-British semi-final on Saturday, while Taylor and Wagner had a similarly straight forward task as they beat Sweden’s Anders Hard and Bas van Erp of the Netherlands 6-1, 6-0.
Sunday’s climax to the 22nd British Open will see Scheffers face Sweden’s Stefan Olsson in the men’s main draw singles final. Scheffers, who won the first Super Series singles title of his career at last year’s British Open, came from 2-0 down in the second set of his semi-final against French world No. 4 Nicolas Peifer to prevail 6-2, 6-4.
Meanwhile, world No. 7 and reigning NEC Singles Masters champion Olsson reached his first British Open men’s singles final after upsetting second seed and world No. 3 Houdet 6-3, 6-4.
Saturday’s penultimate day of play at Nottingham Tennis Centre saw Bingham’s David Phillipson end his tournament on a high after he won the men’s consolation singles final.
After a first round loss in the main draw on Tuesday, British No. 2 Phillipson put up a confident performance to win his semi-final against Frenchman Lahcen Majdi 6-1 6-2 on Saturday morning. Later in the day, Phillipson produced another fine performance to justify his top seeding for the consolation and defeated second seed Joachim Gerard of Belgium 7-6(1), 6-3 in the final.
The 22nd British Open is supported by Nottingham City Council and Highland Spring and entry is free to all spectators throughout the tournament.
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