Roland Garros Adds Two New Events For 2019

Published 02/08/2019, 6:01 AM EST

The French Tennis Federation will be incorporating the quad singles and doubles wheelchair tennis events this year during the Roland Garros 2019. The best quad players of the world are expected to be present during the hardcourt major. In November 2018, the All England Club made an announcement about inculcating the quad events to the Wimbledon Championships’ schedule in the 2019 season.

After getting acknowledged with Wimbledon introducing the wheelchair event, the World Number 3 and Rio Paralympic silver medallist Lapthorne uttered, “It’s been a big goal of mine to play competitive wheelchair tennis at Wimbledon and we got a little taste this year with the doubles exhibition, which was amazing. Now the All England Club has given us the opportunity to play competitively next year. It’s the biggest event that you can play in in tennis, so we’re all really pleased that the work that has gone into this becoming a reality has paid off.”

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The Wheelchair Tennis Tour was established in 1992 with 11 international tournaments in their circuit. NEC was sponsoring them since their inception and they end their contract concluded towards the end of 2013 and since June 2014, UNIQLO became their official sponsors. Presently, the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour comprises of 160 plus tournaments taking place in more than 40 countries and it gives about total prize money over $2.5 million. Since the year 2007, wheelchair tennis has been played at all four Grand Slams.

The Higher Council of the French Tennis Federation, Jean-Pierre Limborg articulated his pleasure to introduce new events in the 2019 French Open tennis tournament, he said, “we are delighted to introduce a quad wheelchair tennis event at Roland Garros from 2019 and look forward to welcoming the division’s elite players onto the clay courts alongside the competitors for the men’s and women’s divisions.”

The players with a complete physical disability will qualify to participate for the wheelchair tennis quad division. The Minimum Impairment Criteria comprises of malfunctioning of three or more extremities.

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Mahalakshmi Murali joined EssentiallySports in 2018 as a tennis author and has gone on to pen more than 1800 engaging articles, probing into various aspects of the sport and its illustrious players. With her expertise on the sport, Mahalakshmi has interviewed stalwarts from the sport such as Serena WIlliams’ coach Patrick Mouratoglou and Kevin Anderson’s physio, Carlos Costa. Equipped with her vast experience and a keen understanding of the sport, Mahalakshmi now co-heads the tennis department.