TENNIS PLAYERS CELEBRATE
JORDANNE Whiley is desperate to use her success at the 2014 British Wheelchair Tennis Awards as a springboard for triumph next year.
She won Female Player of the Year, Players’ Player of the Year and the Jim Cochrane Award at the ceremony in Gloucester last week, in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the game, after becoming the first British player to complete a calendar year Grand Slam.
The player from Ickenham said: “I have to keep pinching myself, but I want to do it all again in 2015 and I want to win my first Grand Slam singles title.”
Whiley, who is likely to complete 2014 with a career best year-end ranking of number five, had the female player trophy collected by fellow Ickenham wheelchair tennis star Marc McCarrol, and her father, Keith, accepted the players’ player accolade on her behalf, because she and her Grand Slam-winning doubles partner, Yui Kamiji, were at Wimbledon receiving a special award from the Lawn Tennis Writers Association. She travelled to Gloucester the following day to receive the Jim Cochrane Award.
Eastcote’s Andy Lapthorne picked up the men’s Player of the Year, and joined Antony Cotterill and Jamie Burdekin to collect the Team of the Year award, following their success in the World Team Cup in May.
Lapthorne, who stormed to victory over Cotterill in the men’s quad singles final at the National Championships earlier this month, went on to win the quad doubles with his partner James Shaw – they overcame Richard Green and Ian Payne in the final.
“It’s always nice to end the year as national champion and ’ve won the last three quad singles events at he nationals, so it’s a great way to go into Christmas. “It was also really ice to partner James o the doubles win and his first national title. It’s great to see new players coming through, especially new quad players as we build beyond Rio towards Tokyo.”