• 3 MINUTE READ
And just like that, the Australian Open returns once again, but this time with some new and exciting developments.
Shining a light on the many inclusive formats of tennis, this year the Australian Open will play host to the first ever All Abilities tournament, creating endless opportunities for all.
Offering a safe and inclusive environment, ‘The Land Down Under’s’ most prestigious tennis tournament has outstretched to tennis stars far and wide – including those with hearing and intellectual disabilities – as the Grand Slam becomes the first to create a platform for all variations of the sport on a global stage.
When will the Australian Open’s All Abilities tournament take place?
What is the format of the DHoH and PwII Finals?
DHoH Finals and the PwII Finals are both set to follow the same round robin format, with both the women’s and men’s singles draws keeping to a best-of-three tiebreak format. As for all doubles draws, both events will be played as best-of-two tiebreak sets with a deciding match tiebreak where required.
When is the DHoH and PwII Finals draws?
Details of this year’s Australian Open DHoH and PwII Finals draws to be announced soon.
Which British players will be competing at this year’s Australian Open All Abilities tournament?
Already standard-bearers for British deaf tennis, World and European medallists Esah Hayat and Phoebe Suthers, both 20, are set to represent Great Britain at the Australian Open’s first deaf tennis tournament.
“I think this is a huge event for deaf sport,” enthused Suthers. “Grand Slams are the biggest tournaments in tennis so to host a deaf competition alongside this is really special.”
Concluding what came to be a stellar 2022 season, Hayat claimed his fifth consecutive Deaf Nationals singles title at the National Tennis Centre (NTC) back in September. Meanwhile, Suthers – a four-time women’s singles National Deaf Champion – returns to an international stage for the first time since winning multiple medals at the last European and World Championships, not including the singles and doubles titles she earnt at the Slovenia Deaf Open in 2018.
Representing Great Britain in the PwII men’s Finals will be two-time Global Games silver medallist and former triple World Champion, Fabrice Higgins, and countryman Oliver Beadle who earnt himself a fourth-place finish at the 2019 Global Games.
“I’m extremely excited to be playing at the Australian Open,” said Higgins. “It is something I have dreamed off since I first started playing and it will be a surreal experience with hopefully many more to come.”
Beadle added, “Going back to Australia is a special occasion. I played at the Virtus Global Games in Brisbane in 2019 and that was fantastic to play as part of the GB team. It is great to be back playing at another international event and it couldn’t get much bigger than the Australian Open!”
In the women’s, Midlands-born star, Anna McBride, is set to fly the British flag once again as the former Global Games gold medallist makes a return to the international stage.
In speaking about this extraordinary opportunity given to Learning Disability sport, McBride explained, “I feel this tournament is huge for LD tennis. The quality of the tennis will be exceptional, as strong as the latter stages of the Global Games. The men’s event potentially has six of the top seven of the world’s best players and the women’s event definitely has the top six best players competing.
“The event will also show other people that you can achieve anything if you work hard at it and will help with the overall visibility of the sport.”
Former Chief Executive at the Tennis Foundation and Vice-Chair of the British Paralympic Association, Geoff Newton, has been awarded an OBE in the King’s New Year’s Honours list.
Tennis Shropshire Councillor Simon Jones reveals his, and Tennis Shropshire's late chairman, Bob Kerr's vision behind the newly opened Cathie Sabin Community Tennis Centre.
The LTA has announced the four players who will represent Great Britain at the second ever World Deaf Tennis Championships in Turkey later this week.
REPORT: The Positive Impact on Mental and Physical Health of Disability Tennis
PLAY
Book a court
Find your nearest tennis court and book, whether playing for fun or competitively.
Follow us
Lead Partner
LTA Official Partners & Supporters
© Copyright 2023 LTA Operations Limited
We use cookies to store information about how you use our website – such as the pages you visit – so we can ace your experience when you’re browsing.
All information about the cookies we use and why we use them are in our Cookie Policy.
You can control which additional cookies we use in the settings below:
We have necessary cookies, which always need to be turned on to help our website function and enable you to use all of our features. These cookies collect anonymised data, such as information about your browser type and version, without collecting any personal data which relates to you.
These cookies allow our website to remember the choices you make (such as your username, your preferred language or where you live) to give you a faster and more personalised experience when browsing. This means we can show you more of the content we think you’d like to see.
Performance cookies are used to collect data about how you use our website so we can continue to improve it in the future. For example, these cookies track the pages you go to most often, the time spent on our website, and any issues encountered, such as error messages, so we can fix these in the future. All data is gathered anonymously and is only used to benefit the functionality of the site.
We have several partners who may also set cookies on our behalf when you visit our website. This allows them to deliver tailored LTA advertising within their domains.
We use cookies on our site to ACE your experience, improve the quality of our site and show you content we think you’ll be interested in. Let us know if you agree to cookies or if you’d prefer to manage your own settings.
