ISLAMABAD, The International Tennis Federation (ITF) has announced that Barcelona would host the NEC Wheelchair Singles Masters and ITF Wheelchair Doubles Masters for the first time in 2023.
The ITF’s year-end wheelchair tennis championships for singles and doubles would take place from October 30 to November 5 at the Emilio Sanchez Academy, with Spain becoming the fifth country to host the NEC Wheelchair Singles Masters and the fourth country to host the Doubles Masters, said a press release.
Spain would also become the third country after Netherlands and USA to host the Singles Masters and Doubles Masters simultaneously.
De la Puente enjoyed a highly successful 2022, winning his first Grand Slam men’s doubles title at the US Open, and ended the year by winning his first ITF Wheelchair Doubles Masters title alongside Argentina’s Gustavo Fernandez. De la Puente subsequently finished 2022 as the year-end No. 1 player on the men’s doubles ranking.
The NEC Wheelchair Singles Masters, the ITF’s year-end championship for the world’s top eight men’s, women’s, and quad singles players, was first held in 1994 in Eindhoven, Netherlands, where it remained until 1999 before moving to Amersfoort for a six-year period. In 2006 the Singles Masters moved to a new Dutch host venue in Amsterdam, which staged the event until 2010.
In 2011 the Singles Masters was held outside of the Netherlands for the first time and has since been hosted in Belgium, Great Britain, and the USA before now moving to Spain in 2023.
NEC has been the title sponsor of the Singles Masters since its inception in 1994. In 2018 the NEC Wheelchair Singles Masters celebrated its 25th edition before NEC celebrated 30 years of their sponsorship of ITF wheelchair tennis activities in 2021.
The first ever Doubles Masters took place in 2000, alongside the NEC Wheelchair Singles Masters, in Amersfoort.
Featuring the world’s top eight men’s partnerships, top six women’s partnerships, and top four quad partnerships on the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour, the Doubles Masters became a standalone event for the first time in 2003, when it moved to Italy for a period of six years.
In 2011 the event returned to the Netherlands for the first time since 2002 and was held in Amsterdam for a two-year period. The town of Bemmel in the province of Gelderland hosted the Doubles Masters for another two-year period in 2017 and 2018. In 2019 and 2021 the Doubles Masters was held alongside the Singles Masters in Orlando, USA, before both events were again held simultaneously in 2022, in the Dutch city of Oss.
Entries for the NEC Wheelchair Singles Masters and ITF Wheelchair Doubles Masters 2023 would be based on singles and doubles rankings on the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Rankings as of September 18.
