The USTA announced today that it will now include wheelchair tennis at the US Open after wheel chair athletes led by Dylan Alcott complained about their omission from the truncated Grand Slam tournament.
Wheelchair tennis will be played at Flushing Meadows from Sept. 10-13th, the last 4 days of the tournament. Wheelchair athletes can access the tournament site as of Sept. 7th.
Pressure to include wheelchair tennis also came from tennis stars, including Andy Murray and Dustin Brown, who publicly took to social media to champion the inclusion of wheelchair athletes in the 2020 Open.
The USTA acknowledged Friday it should have consulted wheelchair athletes before originally deciding to cancel their competition in New York.
The switch came after multiple virtual meetings with a group of wheelchair athletes and the International Tennis Federation.
On the announcement of the reversal, Dylan Alcott had this to say, “It’s a huge turning point to show how supportive a community can be and from the bottom of my heart, I can’t say thanks enough.”
The initial setup dropped wheelchair, junior and mixed doubles competitions altogether, along with singles qualifying, while the fields for women’s and men’s doubles were halved to 32 teams apiece.
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