One of the game's greats will say goodbye to tennis on home soil next year. Dylan Alcott announced his intention to retire from wheelchair tennis on Tuesday, and will play his last career tournament at the 2022 Australian Open.
"Tennis changed my life … I owe it everything and what better way than to finish in my home city in front of big, big crowds after the year that we had the last couple of years," Alcott told reporters at Melbourne Park. "It’s going to be incredible.”
After completing a history Golden Slam at the US Open in September—the first male player to do so and second at the event, mere hours after Diede De Groot also completed the feat—the 30-year-old Alcott was coy with reporters about his future, despite having lost just one singles match in 2021.
Aclott completed the boxed set of Grand Slams by beating Dutch teenager Niels Vink, 7-5, 6-2, and also beat the 18-year-old in the semifinals on the way to winning gold in Tokyo.
"I'm not done yet. I know when the end is and it's soon," he said then. "I'm going to enjoy this with my team and my family. We'll see what happens. I'm not retiring today, put it that way. But I got a little bit left.
"I'm feeling about as washed up as I've ever felt, to be honest, as I sit here today because of the next generation coming through, which is pretty cool."
Alcott has won 23 Grand Slam titles in in career across singles and doubles, with five of those coming at the US Open. At his home major, he'll look to go out on a high by winning an eighth straight title in singles. He and compatriot Heath Davidson have also won the last four quad doubles titles at the Australian Open. However, the Aussie's greatest triumphs have come off the court as an ambassador for disabled sport, with his victories and affable, larger-than-life personality raising both his own personal profile at home and abroad, and that of wheelchair tennis as a whole.
"I just want to leave the sport in a better spot for the next generation of young tennis players to come, wheelchair tennis players, and tennis players in general. I hope I played a very small part of that," Alcott said in the afternath of his US Open victory.
"I'm proud to be disabled. I'm proud to play wheelchair tennis. I'm proud I've won the Golden Slam in wheelchair tennis. I don't want to play able-body tennis. I don't want to go to the Olympics. I don't want to be out there with Novak [Djokovic] and [Daniil] Medvedev. I want to be me. I'm proud to be me. I'm proud of the journey that we've had."
The 2022 Australian Open is scheduled to be played from Jan. 17-30.
