Phillipson heads British success in Florida
Nottinghamshire's David Phillipson gained the biggest success of his career on Wednesday when he moved into the men's singles second round at the Florida Open as British players enjoyed a largely successful day at wheelchair tennis tournaments in the USA and South Africa.
British No 2 Phillipson beat Austrian fifth seed and world No 6 Martin Legner 3-6, 6-1, 6-3 at the Florida Open, the first Super Series event of the season on the 2010 NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour, to gain his first ever win over a world top 10 player.
After reaching the last 16 in Boca Raton for the second successive year, Phillipson now looks well-placed to go on and possibly reach his first quarter-final at Super Series level, the most important tier of wheelchair tennis tournament outside of those held at the Grand Slams.
With all of Britain's top three ranked men's singles players being drawn against seeds in Florida, British No 3 Marc McCarroll put up an encouraging performance against Japan's world No 9 Satoshi Saida despite Saida prevailing 6-4, 6-4, while Scotland's current British No 1 Gordon Reid lost out 0-6, 3-6 to world No 7 Nicolas Peifer of France. McCarroll, Reid and Phillipson also saw their men's doubles challenges end on Wednesday afternoon against seeded opposition.
Warwickshire's British No 2 Jordanne Whiley reached the second round of the women's singles with a 6-4, 6-1 victory over Willemien Smits of the Netherlands and plays Dutch eighth seed Marjolein Buis in the last 16, where she is joined by British No 1 Lucy Shuker, who had a first round bye after being seeded seventh for the event.
Hampshire's world No 1 Peter Norfolk begins his bid for a sixth Florida Open quad singles title on Thursday morning in Boca Raton and is joined in the quad singles by Middlesex's Andrew Lapthorne, who is the eighth seed.
After reaching six finals at last week's Border Open in East London, South Africa, British players contesting this week's South African Open have continued to make further progress in Johannesburg amid continuing wet weather that has interrupted both tournaments.
Scotland's Kevin Simpson is on course to reach his second men's singles semi-final in successive weeks after dropping just two games in his opening match against South Africa's Daniel Mogorosi. Third seed Simpson now faces seventh seed Desmond Monyamane in the last eight, where victory would earn the Scot a second semi-final in a week against French top seed David Dalmasso.
Dalmasso beat Britain's Ade Adepitan in the first round of the Border Open last week before going on to beat Simpson. However, London's Adepitan, best known for his media career and former wheelchair basketball success than his burgeoning wheelchair tennis career, still has the chance to go beyond the first round in Johannesburg after his opening men's singles match against South Africa's Leon Els was rained off on Wednesday with just two games played.
In the women's singles, Wiltshire's Louise Hunt beat fellow Briton Laura Coteman 6-1, 6-0 in the first round. Second seed Hunt is bidding to reach her second singles final in successive weeks in South Africa, while her first round loss means that Cambridgeshire's Coteman will now bid to win her successive consolation singles events.
Also for the second successive week, Cheshire's Antony Cotterill and East Sussex's Adam Field will meet in the semi-finals of the quad singles. Cotterill won last week's contest at the Border Open before his scheduled final was rained off and he opened his South African Open bid with a 6-0, 6-0 win over the host nation's Abigail Mokobodi, while top seed Field had a first round bye.
Cotterill and Field will also start as favourites to land back-to-back quad doubles titles later this week after winning in East London last weekend.