While the number of tournaments on the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour calendar continues to grow as sport emerges from the Covid-19 pandemic, April’s tournaments included a succession of ITF Futures Series events in Israel, Poland and Turkey, with 14-year-old Tokito Oda proving to be the undoubted star in Turkey on his way to making wheelchair tennis history.

Oda became the youngest player to top the boys’ rankings in last week’s Cruyff Foundation Junior Wheelchair Tennis Ranking and went on to make it a hat-trick of junior and senior singles titles in Turkey.

After claiming main draw victories at the Mega Saray Open and the MTA Open, Oda added the men’s second draw title to his junior victory at last week’s ITF 3 Kros Medical Open.

In all singles competition Oda won 22 successive matches in Turkey in the second half of April, winning 21 of his matches in straight sets and only his men’s semi-final at the Mega Saray Open going to a decider as he fought back to beat Spain’s Enrique Siscar Meseguer 4-6 7-5 6-2. 

A measure of the young Japanese star’s progress is that among the older and more experienced players he overcame he twice beat his countryman and six-time Paralympian Satoshi Saida in straight sets.

“Of course, I was surprised. I had been practising with the belief that I could win the tournaments, but there were many matches where I won by enough margin against higher level players. It gave me confidence that what I had done and what I had built up was not wrong,” said Oda, who began playing wheelchair tennis at the age of nine after a series of parasports were recommended to him by his doctor while he was in hospital being treated for osteosarcoma.

“I couldn't play tennis during the lockdown, so I spent my time at home doing strength training, watching various players play, and playing guitar as a hobby. After I started tennis again after the lockdown, I had no plans for my next tournament, so I just practised the basics and checked my form. I feel that this has directly affected my current games.”

With his focus now on the ITF 2 tournaments coming up in Turkey in mid-May, Oda believes his mental strength has played a significant part in his success.

“During this trip to Turkey I realised once again that no one can beat me in terms of my mental strength, despite of tough situations,” he added. ”In fact there were games where I was able to recover from my opponents’ match points, and there were also games where I was able to win from 0-40 down.”

Oda, who turns 15 later this week, moved one point ahead of Britain’s Ben Bartram at the top of the junior rankings after his titles at the Mega Saray Open and the the MTA Open, while his latest success at the Kros Medical Open means he starts May more than 30 point clear of Bartram.   

“I've been aiming to become the youngest world No.1 junior and I felt that achieving this would give me confidence in the future,” said Oda, who began April with a men’s singles ranking of No. 91.

His ranking earned Oda a place in the men’s second draw at the ITF 3 Kros Medical Open and while he went on to win his event, Daniel Caverzaschi capped an outstanding week to win the men’s main draw singles title, having beaten second seed Takashi Sanada and fellow Spaniard and third seed Martin de la Puente earlier in the tournament.

Oda, whose men's singles ranking has improved to No. 53 this week, was not the only Japanese singles champion nor the only multiple champion in Antalya. 

Manami Tanaka began the three tournaments by winning three three-set contests in her four matches to live up to her top seeding at the Mega Saray Open.

While Tanaka beat Argentina's Maria Florencia Moreno 6-4 2-6 6-2 in the final, Moreno was denied a title once more at the Kros Medical Open as Russian fourth seed Viktoriia Lvova took the honours to earn back-to-back women's singles titles on the Turkish clay courts. 

There were also back-to-back titles for home favourite Ugur Altinel in the quad singles events in Antalya as the 39-year-old won successive round-robin draws at the Mega Saray Open and the MTA Open. However, Altinel's bid for a hat-trick of titles on home soil came unstuck at the Kros Medical Open as former world No.1 Shraga Weinberg took their title decider 6-4 6-4.