The 14th staging of the US Open Wheelchair Competition, presented by Deloitte, has the opportunity to be the grandest Slam in the history of wheelchair tennis.
Diede de Groot and Dylan Alcott arrive in New York this week with the opportunity to complete the Golden Slam, or winning all four Grand Slam tournaments and the Paralympic gold medal in the same year, never before achieved in the 40-plus-year history of the professional wheelchair circuit.
With dominant stars such as Shingo Kunieda, David Wagner, and Esther Vergeer defining recent decades of the sport, it's easy to ask, 'How can that be?' The answer is, simply, a quirk of scheduling.
Vergeer, a winner of 21 Grand Slams in singles and a record 470 straight matches before her retirement in 2013, never had the opportunity to compete in singles at Wimbledon. There, the wheelchair singles event was added in 2016, joining a doubles tournament that had been staged since 2009. The quad division, in which Alcott competes, was only staged at the Australian and US Opens until 2019, when it was added to the program at Roland Garros and Wimbledon. And the Paralympics, which were pushed back from 2020 to 2021 as a result of the COVID-19 pademic, were never held in the same year as the US Open.
Until now. Just four days after the Paralympic flame was extinguished, the world's best will begin play at the US Open. The stage is set for Alcott and de Groot's chase for history as consensus No. 1 players in the world, a moniker bestowed on them even prior to their exploits this season.
"When we got here Monday, it actually felt like it was only two or three months ago that we were here last year," de Groot said. "So that's really how quick the year has gone, I think.
"Coming from from Tokyo, where it was such a big event, so much pressure, so much excitement, and then coming here [after] seeing a lot of athletes going home to their families, it was a little bit strange. It's almost like eating dessert and then having something else after. But now I'm here now, I'm training and I feel good. Just to be out here and to be playing again, you really get into the rhythm and get into the feeling of, 'Oh, yeah, you know what? We're back again and we're going to play again.'"
The 24-year-old Dutchwoman, the heir apparent to her compatriot Vergeer, won seven of the first 12 majors she entered and has won the last four in a row. She'll aim to complete the single-season boxed set by winning her fourth straight US Open singles title as the top seed.
"Being from a country that has such a rich history in wheelchair tennis is already so special to me. I think just adding [anything] to that list makes it more special, but I think that people around me are probably thinking about [the Golden Slam] more than I am," she said.
"I don't think that not adding the Golden Slam will not add me to that list. I don't think it changes my worth as a person to do it. I think it's more important that I feel well, that I play well and that I'm enjoying myself, and that's what I'm doing at the moment."
Alcott, winner of 14 Grand Slam titles in quad singles, has been the dominant player in the quads since first rising to world No. 1 in 2015. He's come to New York with history on the line before: in 2019, he had his bid for the Grand Slam stopped in the US Open final by Andy Lapthorne, and was also the runner-up last year to Sam Schroder after winning the Australian Open and Roland Garros.
"The opportunity to win the Golden Slam is cool. At Wimbledon was when every single person started talking about it, but... I don't want to think about it because I had an opportunity to win the Grand Slam here a couple of years ago, and I stuffed it up because I thought about it," Alcott said.
"I almost lost the semifinal in Tokyo and when I was 4-3 down [in the third to Niels Vink], losing, and guess how many times I thought about the Golden Slam? Zero. I forgot about it, so I'm not even thinking about it here. All I'm thinking about is that I would love to do it, it's my goal to do it, but the only expectation of me is to perform my best... and enjoy it.
"I love what tennis does for me, which is gives me a platform to change perceptions so people with disability can live the lives they deserve to live, not just athletes, anybody. It's my big purpose in life. Tennis helps me do that. But tennis is not my whole life. All I can ask myself is to do my best, to have fun and enjoy myself. And I promise you, I'll do that if I win. Amazing. But if I don't, I'll live. So I'm really looking forward to just being here and enjoying the moment, and doing it with a smile on my face."
All but three players who won a medal for their country in Tokyo are competing at the US Open, including all nine singles medalists. The doubles pairing of Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid, winners of the last seven majors, also have the opportunity to complete a Grand Slam in the discipline after taking home a silver from the Paralympics.
"It'll be interesting to see how all the Paralympians who are coming straight from Tokyo, but especially the ones who went deep in the draw and expended all that energy to get on the podium, how quickly they can turn that around to compete a Grand Slam," said USTA national coach Paul Walker, involved in the sport for more than 20 years and who recently helped lead Team USA in Tokyo.
"We all, as humans, only have so much gas in the tank, and the Paralympics have always been the premier event in wheelchair tennis, even though it's now in all the Grand Slams. Since that wasn't always the case, the Paralympics were certainly always the pinnacle event. Everybody wants a gold medal, because that only comes around every four years.
"I'll be curious to see if there are any disruptions to any players who have done well at the US Open in the past, or at Grand Slams. It's going to be an interesting dynamic, and they're going to get a taste of what it's like to do somehing like this, which is so historic."
The 2021 US Open Wheelchair Competition begins at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center on Thursday, Sept. 9 with quarterfinal action in singles.
