A pair of Grand Slam wheelchair champions have blasted the USTA's decision to slash the US Open wheelchair event as discriminatory.
Aussie Grand Slam quad wheelchair champion Dylan Alcott called the USTA's move "disgusting discrimination."
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"I thought I did enough to qualify—2x champion, number 1 in the world. But unfortunately I missed the only thing that mattered, being able to walk," Alcott tweeted in response to British wheelchair champion Andy Lapthorne's tweet. "Disgusting discrimination."
The USTA announced it is cutting wheelchair tennis, mixed doubles, qualifying and the junior tournament from the 2020 US Open in a move it says is designed to limit the number of people on site at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center and increase safety from the coronavirus.
The International Paralympic Committee criticized US Open organizers for cutting the event.
"We urge the organizers to rethink them because they may destroy years of wheelchair tennis work," IPC president Andrew Parsons said in a statement.
World No. 1 Alcott, a two-time US Open singles champion and 2019 doubles champion, said the USTA has cast wheelchair athletes as second-class citizens with this decision.
“This sets a really dangerous example for people all around the world that we are second rate citizens and we aren’t worth as much as our able-bodied counterparts,” Alcott told Australia's Today Show.
Alcott said wheelchair athletes are still waiting for the US Open and ITF to explain this decision.
Photo credit: US Open Facebook