Paralympic champion Norfolk secures Nottingham Indoor title

Britain’s Peter Norfolk won his fourth Nottingham Indoor quad singles titles at the 15th Nottingham Indoor Wheelchair Tennis Tournament which concluded on Sunday.

World No 2 ranked quad Norfolk dropped just the opening game of his final against Dutch world No 8 Dorrie Timmermans van Hall and the Hampshire player sealed a comprehensive 6-1, 6-0 victory in just 53 minutes.     

Norfolk was in two finals on Sunday, pairing up with Surrey’s John Parfitt in the quad doubles decider and the British duo made a fine start against top seeds Boaz Kramer of Israel and Timmermans, winning the final two games of the first set.  However, Kramer and Timmermans came back to edge the second set in similar fashion and a run of three games in the middle of the final set was enough to give Kramer and Timmermans enough of a cushion to go on and seal a 5-7, 7-5, 6-3 victory. 

              
Meanwhile Britain’s Lucy Shuker and Jordanne Whiley are preparing for the Camozzi Doubles Masters, although they will be playing with different doubles partners after pairing up in the women’s doubles at the Nottingham Indoor.

However, after a fine win over the second seeds in Saturday’s semi-finals, third seeds Shuker and Whiley were unable to build on a one set lead of Buis and Gravellier in Sunday’s final.  After going head-to-head earlier in the day in the women’s singles final, fourth seeds Buis and Gravellier made a fine comeback against Somerset’s Shuker and Warwickshire’s Whiley and went on to prevail 3-6, 6-2, 6-2.  Whiley is due to pair up with Buis at the Camozzi Doubles Masters.

The Nottingham Indoor was the penultimate ITF 2 Series event on the 2009 NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour and the last major tournament for many of the world’s leading players before they turn their attentions to the year-end Singles Masters and Doubles Masters events.

Ten world top 10 ranked players contested this week’s tournament in Nottingham, which featured 70 players from across Europe.  Eight of the Nottingham Indoor field will now reappear in just over a fortnight at the NEC Wheelchair Tennis Singles Masters in Amsterdam, the annual highlight for the world’s very best players as the end of the season approaches.  Norfolk is set to go to Amsterdam to bid for his second NEC Masters quad singles title in four years.