Wheelchair tennis wins brace of WheelPower Sports Awards

Wheelchair tennis wins brace of WheelPower Sports Awards
Wheelchair tennis won a brace of honours at the 2009 WheelPower British Wheelchair Sports Awards on Saturday at the Stoke Mandeville Stadium, Aylesbury, the home of wheelchair sport and the historical birthplace of the Paralympic Games.

Great Britain's Invacare World Team Cup-winning effort in early August led to awards for Team of the Year in a Team Event and Coach of the Year for Steph Trill.

Jamie Burdekin, Andrew Lapthorne and Peter Norfolk remained unbeaten in the quad event at the 2009 Invacare World Team Cup, the Davis and Fed Cup of wheelchair tennis.

They scored overwhelming wins against Sweden, Italy, Israel, the Netherlands and the United States.

Burdekin and Norfolk won both singles rubbers against the United States to give Great Britain victory in the Invacare World Team Cup quad event for the third time.

In recognition of this latest achievement, the Team of the Year in a Team Event award went to Britain's leading quad tennis players for the second successive year after Burdekin and Norfolk won the same honour in 2008 following their bronze medal-winning performance at the Beijing Paralympics.

Also nominated in 2008 following Norfolk's quad singles Paralympic gold medal triumph and the quad doubles bronze medal success in Beijing, Bexhill-on-Sea-based Trill finally gained the Coach of the Year Award this year.

The Great Britain National Quad Coach, Trill's dedication and attention to detail played a large part in inspiring this summer's Invacare World Team Cup triumph, a unique event in which coaches are allowed to sit on the court during matches as players vie for national pride.

Victory in the Invacare World Team Cup was the highlight of another fine year for Great Britain's quad wheelchair tennis players, spearheaded by another superb year for Norfolk, who finishes 2009 as the year-end world No 1 quad player for the fifth time in seven years.

The Briton won six of the eight tournaments he has played, included two Grand Slam titles and the season-ending 2009 NEC Singles Masters.

Despite his fine year, Norfolk was beaten to the award for Best Individual Male Achievement this year by 100m world record-breaking wheelchair racer Mickey Bushell.

Norfolk has won the Individual Male Achievement Award three times in the past seven years.

Meanwhile, after a fine first year in the quad division of wheelchair tennis, Lapthorne missed out on the Best Male Newcomer Award, which was won by wheelchair basketball player Simon Gibbs.

Leicestershire's Rachel Edwards, a promising junior wheelchair tennis player, was also honoured at the 2009 British Wheelchair Sports Awards with a Lord's Taverners Sports Endeavour Award.

As part of its ongoing support for wheelchair tennis junior development, the Lord's Taverners supported the Junior Championships at the 2009 National Wheelchair Tennis Championships, an event in which Edwards was runner-up in the Junior Doubles.