With just two days until the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Tennis Event begins, players are adding the finishing touches to their on-court preparations, revelling in life at the Paralympic Village, basking in the afterlgow of the Opening Ceremony, and proudly wearing their national colours at Ariake Tennis Park. Consider this your primer for the biggest event on the wheelchair tennis calendar in 2021.

When does the Paralympic Tennis Event start?

The Paralympic Tennis Event runs for nine days from Friday 27 August – three days after the Tokyo 2020 Opening Ceremony – until Saturday 4 September 2021, the day before the Closing Ceremony.

Play starts at 11:00 local time for the first six days of the event and 12:00 for the final three days, which will feature 10 of the 12 medal matches. Both the start times and tournament schedule are subject to change.

Visit the ITF's Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Tennis Event website for more detailed schedule information.

Who is playing, and where can I find the draws?

The Paralympic Tennis Event will feature 104 players nominated by 31 nations. The final entry list is available here.

All six Tokyo 2020 Paralympic draws took place on Wednesday 25 August. The entry lists and draws are also available on the Tokyo 2020 website.

All draws are being played as knockouts, with top-ranked seeds receiving byes as appropriate: 

Men's singles: 56-player draw, top 8 (of 16) seeds receive bye to second round
Women's singles: 32-player draw, 8 seeds
Quad singles: 16-player draw, 4 seeds

Men's doubles: 23-team draw, 8 seeds and one further team receive bye to second round
Women's doubles: 12-team draw, 4 seeds all receive bye to quarter-finals
Quad doubles: 7-team draw, top seed receives bye to semi-finals

Has anything changed to the match format since Rio 2016?

Unlike the Tokyo 2020 Olympic tennis event, which introduced match tiebreaks in doubles and a three-set men’s singles gold medal match for the first time, there have been no such changes made to the Paralympic tennis event format since Rio 2016. All matches will be the best of three tiebreak sets.

Gold medal defences

Six players are hoping to defend their Paralympic titles in Tokyo: Great Britain’s Gordon Reid (men’s singles), Dylan Alcott (quad singles and doubles), French duo Stephane Houdet and Nicolas Peifer (men’s doubles), Netherlands’ Aniek van Koot (women’s doubles) and Heath Davidson (quad doubles, won with Alcott).

Alcott is the top seed in both quad draws, as he and Davidson receive a bye into the semi-finals of the doubles. Reid returns as the No. 5 seed in the men’s singles, and Houdet and Peifer are back as the men’s doubles No. 2 seeds. Having partnered Jiske Griffioen to gold five years ago, van Koot will play alongside Diede De Groot in Tokyo, the top-seeded Dutch duo also receiving a bye into the quarter-finals.

First-timers

Costa Rica makes its Paralympic wheelchair tennis debut at Tokyo 2020, courtesy of a Bipartite place awarded to Jose Pablo Gil for the men’s singles draw.

Like Gil, quad singles world No. 2 Sam Schroder ranks among the athletes contesting their first Paralympic Games. The 21-year-old Dutchman, winner of the 2020 US Open, is one of 15 Grand Slam singles champions in the field.

Former medallists

Twenty players taking part at Tokyo 2020 know what it takes to win a medal for their nation, having reached the podium at previous Paralympic Games. Dylan Alcott ranks apart as the only wheelchair tennis player at Tokyo 2020 to have won medals in two different sports, having claimed wheelchair basketball gold and silver in 2008 and 2012 respectively to bring his Paralympic medal count to four overall.

Previous Paralympic Wheelchair Tennis Medallists at Tokyo 2020:

Dylan Alcott (AUS): quad singles gold and doubles gold, Rio 2016
Frederic Cattaneo (FRA): men’s doubles silver, London 2012
Heath Davidson (AUS): quad doubles gold, Rio 2016
Diede De Groot (NED): women’s doubles silver, Rio 2016
Joachim Gerard (BEL): men’s singles bronze, Rio 2016
Alfie Hewett (GBR): men’s singles silver and doubles silver, Rio 2016
Stephane Houdet (FRA): men’s doubles gold, Beijing 2008 and Rio 2016; men’s singles silver and doubles bronze, London 2012
Yui Kamiji (JPN): women’s singles bronze, Rio 2016
Sakhorn Khanthasit (THA): women’s doubles silver, Athens 2004
Shingo Kunieda (JPN): men's doubles gold, Athens 2004; men's singles gold and doubles bronze, Beijing 2008; men's singles gold, London 2012; men's doubles bronze, Rio 2016
Andy Lapthorne (GBR): quad doubles silver, London 2012; quad singles silver and doubles bronze, Rio 2016
Stefan Olsson (SWE): men’s doubles silver, Beijing 2008; men’s doubles gold, London 2012
Nicolas Peifer (FRA): men’s doubles silver, London 2012; men’s doubles gold, Rio 2016
Gordon Reid (GBR): men’s singles gold and doubles silver, Rio 2016
Maikel Scheffers (NED): men’s singles bronze, Beijing 2008
Lucy Shuker (GBR): women’s doubles bronze, London 2012 and Rio 2016
Aniek van Koot (NED): women’s singles silver and doubles silver, London 2012; women’s singles silver and doubles gold, Rio 2016
David Wagner (USA): quad singles silver and doubles gold, Athens 2004 and London 2012; quad singles bronze and doubles gold, Beijing 2008; quad singles bronze and doubles silver, Rio 2016
Shraga Weinberg (ISR): quad doubles silver, Beijing 2008; quad doubles bronze London 2012
Jordanne Whiley (GBR): women’s doubles bronze, London 2012 and Rio 2016

There is also a previous wheelchair tennis Paralympic medallist competing in another sport at Tokyo 2020: Daniela Di Toro, who won women's doubles silver at Sydney 2000 and singles bronze at Athens 2004, is a member of Australia's Paralympic table tennis squad for a second time following her appearance at Rio 2016.

What else do I need to know?

Two words you can expect to hear over the next 10 days in Tokyo: Golden Slam. Four players – Netherlands’ Diede De Groot and Australian Dylan Alcott in singles, and British doubles pair Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid – have won all three Grand Slam titles in 2021. As top seeds in Tokyo, all will be favourites to claim further glory both here and at the US Open, which takes place in the week after the Paralympic Games.

It is the first time that the US Open has hosted wheelchair tennis events in a Paralympic year, presenting the quartet with an unprecedented shot at history and the chance to join Steffi Graf as the only tennis player in history to win all four majors and Olympic gold in a single season.

De Groot will also be leading the charge to maintain Dutch dominance of the women’s events: Since wheelchair tennis became a medal sport at the Paralympics in 1992, the Netherlands have claimed all 14 golds in women’s singles and doubles – half of those claimed by wheelchair tennis legend Esther Vergeer, who retired in 2013.