Eligibility fears hit UK wheelchair tennis
The British wheelchair-tennis contingent in New York has made a fine start to the US Open, but a shadow hangs over the team with the news that Alfie Hewett – the 21-year-old from Norwich who is ranked No 4 in the world – is in danger of being barred from the sport at the end of next season.
The reason is the recent tightening of the eligibility rules, which have been restructured at the insistence
of the International Paralympic Committee. The Daily Telegraph understands that, according to assessors, Hewett’s disability falls short of the specified level of physical impairment.
For the moment, Hewett – who has the degenerative condition Perthes Disease which affects his left hip and femur – can continue to play. The International Tennis Federation has introduced a transition period based on this Paralympic cycle, which it says will end on Jan 1, 2021.
The final decisions on this “classification” process will not be made until next year. The Lawn Tennis Association will continue to make representations, and the ITF may relax its position.
But one other athlete – Marjolein Buis, of the Netherlands, who uses a wheelchair in her daily life because she has Ehlers-danlos Syndrome – has already announced that she will retire next year.
“They are taking away my job and my passion,” wrote Buis, who is 31, in a farewell letter on her website.
“Everyone has got to go through this process,” said Hewett on Thursday. “There’s a lot of changes that still have to happen. I am trying to focus on the game and let everyone who is going to deal with it deal with it.”
Yet the lengthy transition period has caused disquiet within the sport. The classification process began in the summer, with most British players screened by two assessors who attended a tournament in Nottingham, and some athletes are asking why it is taking so long to implement the findings.
In the quad division, international federations regularly challenge competitors to ensure they pass entry requirements, whereas the open wheelchair event follows a self-regulation system.