The 2020 U.S. Open will go forward from August 31 to September 13 as scheduled from Flushing Meadows, New York. However, the major will only hold tournaments for men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, and women’s doubles. Therefore, there will be no tournaments this year in mixed doubles, juniors, and wheelchair tennis according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The absence of wheelchair tennis is not sitting well with Dylan Alcott of Melbourne. Alcott, who also plays wheelchair basketball, is one of Australia’s elite wheelchair athletes. He calls the absence of wheelchair tennis in 2020 as “disgusting discrimination” according to ABC. In a statement, Alcott stated “Just got announced that the US Open will go ahead without wheelchair tennis. Players weren’t consulted. I thought I did enough to qualify. Two-time champion and number one in the world. But unfortunately, I missed the only thing that mattered, being able to walk.”
How dominant has Alcott been since 2015? Well, he is a 10-time singles quad wheelchair tennis champion. He won the Australian Open the last six years from 2015 to 2020, the 2015 and 2018 U.S. Open, the 2019 French Open and Wimbledon, and the gold medal at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.
As a person who is disabled myself, (I have cerebral palsy), I applaud Alcott’s attempt at this time to speak up. There needs to be more effort by all who are organizing professional sports to be more inclusive, especially to those who have a disability. For those who would normally play mixed doubles, they are not impacted as much, because they still get to play doubles. Yes, junior tennis players are impacted, but they still have a future in tennis to look forward to. By excluding wheelchair tennis from the U.S. Open program, the United States Tennis Association needs to put out a sincere statement to apologize to wheelchair tennis players, and try to organize a separate tournament over the next few months that will include the best wheelchair tennis players in the world.
