Alcott to face Vink in enticing Australian Open quarter-final
Dylan Alcott faces the toughest possible challenge when he starts his final Australian Open on Sunday with a quad singles quarter-final against 19-year-old Dutchman Niels Vink.
World No. 1 Alcott announced in November that the 2022 Australian would be his last tournament as a professional wheelchair tennis player as he bids for an unprecedented eight successive title at his home Grand Slam.
However, Vink is the highest ranked player in the eight-strong field that Alcott could have drawn, the Australian having previously described their Tokyo 2020 semi-final as 'the hardest match he's ever played'.
Alcott and Vink’s match-up is one of string of fascinating contests to have come out of Friday’s draw at Melbourne Park with world No. 2 Alfie Hewett pitted against world No. 3 Gustavo Fernandez in the men’s singles quarter-finals and world No. 2 Yui Kamiji and world No. 3 Aniek van Koot drawn to play each other in the women’s singles quarter-finals.
Aside from Alcott’s appetising contest against Vink, the quad singles quarter-finals will see second seed and former US Open Sam Schroder face three-time Australian Open champion David Wagner, while three-time Australian Open finalist Andy Lapthorne will play Grand Slam debutant Donald Ramphadi of South Africa for a place in the semi-finals. The winner of Lapthorne and Ramphadi’s contest will play Alcott or Vink in the last-four.
With Alcott’s impending retirement, Heath Davidson is set to have the not inconsiderable task of flying the Australian flag in the future and Davidson, who has won four quad doubles titles with Alcott at Melbourne Park, begins his singles campaign this year against Japan’s Koji Sugeno.
In the wake of last year’s Australian Open men’s singles runner-up Hewett coming from behind earlier this week to beat Fernandez in three sets on the way to the Briton winning the Melbourne Open Super Series title, their last-eight meeting at Melbourne Park will be another mouth watering contest for fans to devour. Fernandez goes in search of a third Australian Open title this year, while Hewett goes in search of his first.
The winner will face either Hewett’s compatriot and doubles partner Gordon Reid or world No. 6 Stephane Houdet in the semi-finals. Hewett and Reid have reached the finals of the first two tournaments on the 2022 UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour, Reid having finished runner-up to world No. 1 Shingo Kunieda at the Victorian Open.
Kunieda opens his bid for an 11th Australian Open title with a contest against reigning champion Joachim Gerard. The Belgian won his first Grand Slam title at Melbourne Park in 2021, but is still trying to return to his best form, the recent Victorian Open having been his first tournament since being taken ill at the Tokyo Paralympics.
Kamiji and Van Koot’s head-to-head is the obvious stand-out contest in the women’s singles quarter-finals, especially coming so soon after two-time Australian Open champion Kamiji edged a final set tie-break when she beat 2013 Australian Open champion Van Koot 2-6 7-6(3) 7-6(4) in the semi-finals of the Melbourne Open earlier this week.
The winner of Kamiji and Van Koot’s quarter-final will face a semi-final against either 2021 Wimbledon finalist Kgothatso Montjane or Jiske Griffioen as the 36-year-old two-time Australian Open champion returns to Grand Slam competition for the first time since 2017. Former world No. 1 Griffioen retired in the latter stages of 2017 before launching her comeback to wheelchair tennis towards the end of 2019.
The top half of the women’s draw throws up a potential intriguing semi-final between world No. 1 Diede de Groot and Chinese world No. 6 Zhenzhen Zhu, who was recently runner-up to Kamiji at the Victorian Open.
Zhu, who plays Lucy Shuker in her quarter-final on Sunday, made a sensational Grand Slam debut at the 2020 Australian Open when she beat De Groot in three sets in their opening singles contest.
De Groot, winner of the Golden Slam in 2021, opens her Australian Open title defence with a quarter-final against Melbourne Park debutant Dana Mathewson. If the contest lives up to their three-set match at the 2021 NEC Wheelchair Singles Masters then fans are in for another treat.