Norfolk regains Australian crown

By Paul Carter

Paralympic champion Peter Norfolk won his third Australian Wheelchair Tennis Open quad singles title with a 7-6, 6-1 victory over David Wagner of the United States.

Norfolk’s victory means that he will replace Wagner as the world number one ranked quad singles player in the new world rankings.

Alton-based Norfolk lost his second round-robin match in three sets to Wagner in Melbourne on Thursday and went a break down to the American at the start of the final on Show Court 2 at Melbourne Park. However, he took the first of two break points in the sixth game to level at 3-3 before both players held their service games comfortably to force the first set into a tie-break.

Norfolk fired his seventh ace to level at 2-2 in the tie-break, but immediately served his third double-fault to hand the first mini-break to Wagner.

However, the Hampshire player took the next three points to lead 5-3 and maintained his two-point cushion to earn two set points, converting the second of them to move a set ahead.

Norfolk, playing only his first tournament back since claiming his second successive Paralympic quad singles title in Beijing, faced a break point that would have left him 2-0 down in the second set. But the reigning champion withstood the pressure and went on to open up a 3-1 lead, aided by his eighth ace.  He then went on to secure another break to go 4-1 up before his ninth and tenth aces helped extend his advantage to 5-1.

With Wagner faced with serving to stay in the match, the American confidently went 40-0, but Norfolk calmly brought it back to deuce before converting his second match point to gain the 35th quad singles title of his career.  It is also Norfolk’s third quad singles title at a Grand Slam tournament, having also won the quad singles at the US Open at Flushing Meadows in 2007 before his 2008 victory at Melbourne Park.