NEC Singles Masters Preview
Date published :
19 Nov 2009 - 09:09:17
Eight of this week's world top 10 men and women and all four world top
ranked quad players will contest the 2009 NEC Wheelchair Tennis Singles
Masters, which gets underway at the Frans Otten Stadium in Amsterdam on
Wednesday.
For the second successive year, the same eight
players line up for the men's event. The recent withdrawal of world No.
1 Shingo Kunieda, due to injury, brings a new dimension to the event
and leaves another open field that promises a highly exciting
competition.
Kunieda's last singles loss in competition came at
the 2007 NEC Masters, when he was beaten by Frenchman Michael Jeremiasz
in the semifinals. Since then Kunieda has been unbeaten in 77 matches.
With Jeremiasz and Kunieda the only world top eight players missing
from this year's field, the Jeremiasz's French compatriot and world No.
2 Stephane Houdet will arrive in Amsterdam as top seed as he bids for
his first NEC Singles Masters title.
Houdet has reached the
final of all but two of the 12 singles events he has played on the NEC
Tour this year and has only been beaten by Kunieda and Dutchmen Robin
Ammerlaan and Maikel Scheffers during the year. Six-times NEC Masters
champion Ammerlaan has not had his best season in 2009, but the NEC
Masters is a tournament like no other, with an incredible intensity of
competition over a short period of time and Ammerlaan, last year's
runner-up, could provide a tremendous finish to his season at one of
his favourite tournaments.
By comparison, Scheffers has had a
great season, earning his career high world ranking at No. 3 and will
be keen to impress in front of a home crowd. Scheffers comes to
Amsterdam on the back of victories over both Houdet and Ammerlaan at
the US Open in New York and also beat defending champion Stefan Olsson
(SWE) in the final of his warm-up tournament in Nottingham, Great
Britain.
After achieving his career high world ranking of No.
4 back in January this year, defending NEC Masters champion Olsson
returns to Amsterdam occupying that same ranking. The Swede and Houdet
are the only two players in this year's field to have taken world No. 1
Kunieda to three sets during the season and as last year's victory
shows, anything is possible for Olsson this time if he is in top form.
Vergeer bids to make it a dozen in Amsterdam
It
would be little surprise if the women's singles climaxed in yet another
final between the world's top two players, Esther Vergeer and Korie
Homan, with world No. 2 Homan still arguably the biggest threat to
Vergeer's unbeaten record and her quest in Amsterdam for a 12th NEC
Masters title. Vergeer returns to defend her title having extended her
winning streak to 378 matches following the US Open. Meanwhile, after
taking Vergeer to three sets in last year's final in Amsterdam, Homan
has taken her compatriot to a deciding set on two further occasions
this season. However, ominously for Homan, her last contest against
Vergeer, at the US Open in New York, saw Vergeer in devastating form as
she won 60 60.
Homan and Vergeer have contested the final of
every tournament they have both entered since February 2008 and the
only player apart from Vergeer to have beaten Homan in that time and to
have met Vergeer in a final is world No. 3 Florence Gravellier (FRA). A
former NEC Masters finalist, Gravellier is perhaps the player most
likely to cause an upset.
Apart from Homan and Gravellier,
Dutchwomen Sharon Walraven and Jiske Griffioen are the only other
players in Amsterdam this year to have reached an NEC Masters final
against Vergeer. Meanwhile, before Vergeer's dominance of the event
began, Daniela di Toro (AUS) was also a Masters finalist and she should
be a strong contender to at least reach the semi-finals, 13 years on
from her one and only NEC Masters final appearance to date.
Contest for quad world No. 1 ranking promises great excitement
While
anything but a Homan-Vergeer women's final would be a surprise on
current form, anything put a final between David Wagner (USA) and Peter
Norfolk (GBR) would be a surprise in the quad event.
A highly
exciting quad event can be expected since, unlike in the men's and
women's events, the year-end world No. 1 ranking is up for grabs, with
Wagner currently in pole position as he bids to win his fifth NEC
Masters title in six years. Only Norfolk has interrupted Wagner's
winning sequence, beating the American in the 2006 final.
Wagner
is in the only one of Norfolk's three opponents in Amsterdam to have
ever beaten him, while Johan Andersson (SWE) has beaten Wagner three
times since the Beijing Paralympics, once in the round robin phase of
last year's NEC Masters before Wagner avenged that loss with a three
set victory in the final and once this season.
