Great Britain’s Ben Bartram and Lizzy De Greef of the Netherlands have been named as the recipients of the International Tennis Federation’s Wheelchair Tennis Junior of the Year Awards for 2022.

Introduced by the ITF in January 2020, the Junior of the Year Award recognises young wheelchair tennis players who both impress with their results on court and embody the principles of leadership and sportsmanship off-court.

Nominees for the inaugural awards were sent to the ITF Wheelchair Tennis Committee and after careful consideration of the shortlist, Bartram and De Greef were chosen as this year’s worthy winners.

Seventeen-year-old Bartram has maintained his place at No. 2 on the Cruyff Foundation Junior Wheelchair Tennis Ranking throughout 2022, having reached his career-high at No. 1 early in 2021.

His commitment, results and the team qualities he showed, both on and off court, while representing the Great Britain senior men’s team for the first time during the 2022 BNP Paribas World Team Cup Qualification and World Group events were also noteworthy.

In junior competition Bartram has had an outstanding season, winning the boys’ singles and doubles titles at both the Cruyff Foundation Junior Masters and the inaugural US Open Junior Wheelchair Tennis Championships. He has also made significant progress in senior competition, including winning six men’s singles titles in a row at either ITF Futures or ITF 3 level and has improved his men’s singles ranking by more than 45 places during the year, reaching a current career best of No.16 in August.

On learning of his award Bartram said:

“It’s a massive honour to receive this award and it’s great to see all the hard work getting recognised in this way. It’s been a very good year for me, but I’d like to see this as only the start of my career and I’m looking forward to the future and what’s to come.”

While Bartram is the second British player in three years to win the boys’ award, Lizzy de Greef is named the winner of the girls’ award for the second time in three years.

De Greef has again achieved great success in 2022, becoming Cruyff Foundation Junior Masters champion for the second time in three years and maintaining her No.1 position on the Cruyff Foundation Junior Girl’s Ranking. She also helped Netherlands to win the junior event bronze medal at the 2022 BNP Paribas World Team Cup.

The 18-year-old has also improved her senior women’s singles ranking by more than 40 places to reach the women’s singles top 20 for the first time, with key results including reaching the women’s singles final at the ITF 1 Series Belgian Open and winning back-to-back ITF Futures titles in Alghero, Italy.

De Greef also continues to show fantastic commitment to wheelchair tennis with a significant contribution to dedicated community projects, providing wheelchair tennis clinics at her home club and continuing to promote the activities of the Esther Vergeer Foundation and particularly its ‘join the club’ project.

'' I feel very honoured to win this award for the second time. It's amazing to end my last year as a junior like this and I see this as an extra motivation to go for it in 2023," said De Greef.

Both Bartram and De Greef serve as a role models to younger athletes, setting a positive example with their work ethic and eagerness to learn, marking them out as a future ambassadors for the sport.