Shuker relishes the fight, despite coming up against Diede the great
There is no other player like Diede De Groot at the Australian Open Championships.
It’s not merely that she is an outstanding player and ambassador for her sport but it is her on-court record that defies belief. For the record it will be three years next month since she last lost a singles match.
She has not been absent, perennially injured or taken a hiatus of any sort in this period but has regularly, and emphatically, seen off all opposition coming her way.
The 27-year-old is a champion like no other but almost slipped up last month at the Melbourne Wheelchair Open where she was taken to a final set tie-break by world No. 2 Yui Kamiji. That De Groot won the decider to love surprised nobody.
Britain’s Lucy Shuker, 16 years the Dutch player’s elder, was handed the unenviable task of taking Kamiji’s near-monumental upset one step further.
Sadly for Shuker, a wonderful competitor and ambassador for disability sport and the uplift of sport more widely, it was not to be, De Groot was victorious 6-3 6-1.
Shuker, who is heavily disabled in comparison to most wheelchair tennis players, is a leader and is to be listened to.
She was forthright, and fair, in what it means to travel all the way to Australia from Britain only to be faced with one of any sport’s most daunting challenges.
“It’s always slightly heart wrenching when the draw comes out because there are two players at the moment who are almost stand-outs, Yui Kamiji and Diede,” she said.
“And when you pull Diede your heart kind of sinks a little but you have to say I am putting myself out here every time to be among the best players in the world, and if you want to win a grand slam you have to beat everyone.
“But to draw her first round is tough but I embraced the challenge today and put up a good fight and that’s all I can ask and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed fighting.”
It was 31 degrees with blazing sunshine mingling with a long shadow spreading the length of Court 7 when play began just after 5.30pm.
The occasional problem - for both players - of the early evening glint getting in the eye line when serving aside, the heat was neither there nor there said Shuker.
“The heat wasn’t so much an issue for me it’s more about ability and disability. I am so much more disabled than she is but that’s tennis. But it doesn’t make life easy.
“At times I feel I have hit a really good shot and somehow she is able to do something with a ball that maybe against anyone else might be a winner and she pulls a winner back and you’re just like ‘Okay, we’ll go again’.
Is it worth it then, the long haul, every year for this Open?
Shuker smiles, a touch ruefully perhaps.
“For me it’s the financial cost but it also weighs up against the opportunity to earn ranking points.
Tennis Australia have really upped their game in terms of supporting wheelchair tennis, (with) the two lead-in events, increasing the draw size to 32 (men and women) and 24 (quads) players and 16 players in the draw here which is amazing because it provides so many more players the opportunity to compete.
“It’s exciting to see the depth grow. You can’t come here for it to cost you money and not earn money to replace that and we are still having to pay bills back home.
“But I love coming to Australia, it’s such a long way but it’s incredible.”
Elsewhere, Alfie Hewitt safely overcame Japan’s Takashi Sanada in two sets in the men's singles, while in the quad division Australia’s Heath Davidson had the honour of becoming the first wheelchair player to win a match on the newly revamped Court 6 - a two-tier party court with a sizeable bar occupying one side of the court.
Davidson saw off Tomas Masaryk in two sets and may have good reason to be glad of the 11am start that perhaps gave the court a quieter ambience than has been forthcoming later most days this AO.