BRITAIN’S top wheelchair tennis player Peter Norfolk takes on American world No 4 Nick Taylor when he opens his Australian Wheelchair Tennis Open quad singles title defence today at Melbourne Park.
Fellow Briton Lucy Shuker faces French world No 3 Florence Gravellier in her first round women’s singles contest.
Norfolk goes in search of his fourth Australian Open quad singles title and the 17th major of his career this week.
The two-time Paralympic champion ended 2009 as the world No 1 ranked quad singles player for the fifth time in seven seasons after another highly successful year during which he won both the Australian Open and US Open Grand Slam titles.
Norfolk is unbeaten in 22 career contests against Taylor and today’s contest will be the first of three round-robin matches in Melbourne for the Hampshire player, who will also take on Sweden’s Johan Andersson and American world No 2 David Wagner.
The top two players after the round-robin matches will then progress to Saturday’s final.
World No 11 Shuker starts her fourth Australian Open as the lowest ranked player in the elite field of eight for the women’s singles, but the Somerset-based British No 1 will hope to go beyond the quarter-finals in Melbourne for the first time as she bids to improve her record of one win in five career meetings against Gravellier.
On Thursday, Shuker partners Australian Daniela di Toro as they begin their bid to reach a second Grand Slam women’s doubles final in 12 months after finishing as runners-up at Wimbledon in 2009.
With just the world’s top four ranked quad players competing at Melbourne Park, Norfolk will partner Andersson later in the week in the quad doubles.
