De Greef reaches new career high after first ITF 3 title in Antalya

Five months on from being named ITF Wheelchair Tennis Junior of the Year for the second time in three years and just over three months since the end of her eligibility for junior competition, Lizzy de Greef has reached a new senior career-high after the 18-year-old lifted her first ITF 3 singles title at the Kros Medical Open in Antalya.

Fourth seed de Greef beat top seed Viktoriia Lvova 6-4 7-6(2) in the semi-finals and the Dutchwoman went on to defeat Nalani Buob 6-2 6-3 in the final after meeting both Lvova and Buob, both fellow former world No. 1 juniors, for the first time on the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour.

While de Greef claimed her first singles title of 2023, Frederic Cattaneo’s 7-5 6-3 victory over top seed Maikel Scheffers in the men’s singles final brought the Frenchman his first singles title since 2021.  Cattaneo’s second career win over Scheffers came more than 12 years after beating Scheffers for the first time in September 2010.

Meanwhile, a week after Ugur Altinel and Ahmet Kaplan helped Turkey to win the quad event at the BNP Paribas World Team Cup European Qualification, both players lost out to Israel’s Guy Sasson as Sasson went on to win his first quad singles title after defeating Kaplan 6-1 6-2 in the final.

Click here to see all the latest winners on the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour

Sanada, Ohtani and Wagner crowned Busan Open champions

With Sri Lanka and Malaysia having hosted multiple ITF Futures tournaments during February and March, the first ITF 2 and ITF 1 events of the 2023 season in Asia have arrived with Takashi Sanada beginning the back-to-back tournaments in Korea Republic by claiming his fourth Busan Open men’s singles title.

Sanada’s fourth victory in Busan since 2016 brought the 37-year-old second seed his first ITF 2 title since 2019 after beating Daisuke Arai 6-0 6-2. Arai booked his place in the title decider after his first career win over top seed Takuya Miki, with Japanese players having filled all four semi-final berths.

The Japanese success was repeated in the women’s singles, but not before evergreen Thai player Sakhorn Khanthasit beat Chinese top seed Zhenzhen Zhu 7-5 6-2 to reach the quarter-finals. Khanthasit’s progress came to an end in the last eight after a three-set loss to sixth seed Saki Takamuro, but as Japanese players again filled the four semi-final spot Takamuro’s own progress came to an end after a 6-2 6-4 loss to fifth see Shiori Funamizu.

However, while the top half of the draw witnessed some eventful matches, the bottom half of the draw very much belonged to second seed Momoko Ohtani, who eased to the second ITF 2 singles title of her career after completing four successive straight sets wins with a 6-1 6-2 victory over Funamizu.

While Ohtani sliced through the bottom half of the women’s singles draw, David Wagner enjoyed similar success in the early stages of the quad singles as the American top seed narrowly denied a Japanese clean sweep of the singles titles.

But Wagner’s path to the trophy was made all the more difficult by second seed Koiji Sugeno as the fourth successive three-set match between the two principals brought a first final set tie-break, with Wagner prevailing 6-3 5-7 7-6(5) to lift his first title in Busan in his storied 20-year career.