2013 Wimbledon Wheelchair Doubles Event- Part of the NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour -

Tokyo & London, July 1, 2013 - NEC Corporation (NEC; TSE: 6701) announced today that 16 of the world’s top wheelchair tennis players will participate in the 2013 Wimbledon Wheelchair Doubles Event in London on 5-7 July. Four men’s doubles and four women’s doubles pairs will contest the event, which is one of the four Grand Slam tournaments on the NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour.

 

<<Fact sheet>>

Event Name: Wimbledon Wheelchair Doubles Event

Period:     5-7 July, 2013

Venue:     The All England Lawn Tennis Club, Wimbledon, London, Great Britain

Organiser:  The All England Lawn Tennis Club

 

The men’s doubles event entries include defending champions, Tom Egberink of the Netherlands and Michael Jeremiasz of France, as well as reigning Doubles Masters(*1) champions, Stephane Houdet of France and Shingo Kunieda of Japan, the world’s top two ranked men’s singles players. Houdet and Kunieda recently won their second Roland Garros title and were runners-up at Wimbledon in 2010.

 

The women’s doubles event features reigning Wimbledon and Doubles Masters champions, Jiske Griffioen and Aniek van Koot of the Netherlands. Griffioen and van Koot have also won the 2013 Australian Open and Roland Garros titles since winning their maiden Wimbledon title in 2012. Last year’s Wimbledon runners-up, Lucy Shuker and Jordanne Whiley, play with different doubles partners this year, with Shuker partnering Dutchwoman Marjolein Buis, with whom she finished runner-up at the Australian Open in January. Whiley will team up with Japan’s Yiu Kamiji.

The NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour, organised by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and sponsored by NEC, has one of the most advanced and far-reaching tournament calendars and ranking systems in international disability sport. The Tour includes wheelchair tennis events at all four Grand Slams, with total prize money of more than one million US dollars.

 

The 2013 NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour started on January 2, 2013, with the Queensland Open in Australia. This year, the NEC Tour consists of more than 160 tournaments in over 30 countries.

 

The NEC Wheelchair Tennis Rankings are updated weekly by the ITF, with over 600 men, 190 women and 65 quad players from over 50 countries featured on the current rankings.

 

The NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour has events at a variety of levels, from the ITF Futures Series through to the four Grand Slam events.

 

The NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour is part of the NEC Make-a-Difference Drive (*2) of volunteer opportunities for NEC employees. NEC members volunteer for the Tour in such positions as linespeople, ballpersons and interpreters.

 

Looking forward, NEC will continue to develop its role in the Wheelchair Tennis Tour as part of becoming a leading global company that leverages the power of innovation to realise an information society friendly to people and the earth.

 

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Notes:

*1) NEC Wheelchair Tennis Masters

The NEC Masters is the year-end championship for the world’s top ranked singles players, held in Belgium in November. NEC has sponsored the event since 1994.

http://beta.itftennis.com/wheelchair/tournaments/singles-masters/overview.aspx

*2) NEC-Make-a-Difference Drive

The "NEC Make-a-Difference Drive (NEC MDD)" is a volunteer program where NEC group employees participate in a wide variety of social contribution activities throughout the world. More than 55,000 employees all around the world took part in the MDD in the last fiscal year.

http://www.nec.com/en/global/community/necmd/e/index.html

https://www.facebook.com/necmdd