PETER Norfolk clinched his fourth Australian Open quad singles title at Melbourne Park, producing a polished performance to beat American world No 2 David Wagner 6-2, 7-6(4).
As well as retaining his world No 1 ranking, Norfolk’s victory takes his tally of wheelchair tennis majors to 17, while he has now won 41 career singles titles since 2001.
The two-time Paralympic champion opened the final with a love service game and went on to take a 4-1 lead after Wagner converted his one and only break point of the first set to take the second game.
Norfolk took the American to deuce in three of Wagner’s four service games and the Hampshire player converted his first set point for his third break of the opening set.
Wagner took a toilet break at 2-1 in the second set and although Norfolk won the next game to secure the first break of the second set he appeared to tighten up as Wagner put together a sequence of four games to lead 5-3.
However, with the prospect of losing a second set to Wagner for the second time in three days, Norfolk’s ability to perform under pressure then came to the fore and he started to play more relaxed tennis and subsequently came back to force a tie-break.
Norfolk opened a 4-1 lead in the tie-break, but a double-fault allowed Wagner to level at 4-4. However, that was to be Wagner’s only remaining success and Norfolk reeled off the next three points to win his third successive Australian Open title and his fourth since 2004 after an hour and 36 minutes of play.
