05 September 2010
Britain's Peter Norfolk will bid for his 18th major quad singles title on Sunday at the US Open USTA Wheelchair Tennis Championships in St Louis, Missouri after beating American world No 4 Nick Taylor 6-2, 6-0 in Saturday's semi-finals.
In his first tournament since becoming a father for the second time in July, two-time Paralylmpic champion Norfolk maintained his unbeaten record against fourth seed Taylor and will now bid for his fifth US Open Super Series title on Sunday before heading for the final Grand Slam of the year in New York next week.
Norfolk won the first of his 17 major singles titles in the sport at the US Open Super Series in 2001 when the tournament was held in San Diego, but was absent when the tournament switched to St Louis in 2009. His progress to date means that he is likely to reclaim the world No 1 quad singles ranking from defending champion Wagner in next week's rankings published by the International Tennis Federation regardless of the outcome of Sunday's final.
While Norfolk reached the quad singles final, Britain's Lucy Shuker finished runner-up in the women's doubles for the second successive year. Shuker and Australia's Daniela di Toro, the runners-up in the Wimbledon women's wheelchair doubles event for the past two years, were unable to justify top seeding against Dutch duo JiskeGriffioen and Sharon Walraven.
Di Toro dropped her serve in the penultimate game of the first set of Saturday's final as Griffioen and Walraven claimed three games in succession to seal the set before relinquishing just the fourth game of the second set to seal a 6-3, 6-1 victory.