Tennis News You Can Use
I am guessing that Nick Taylor is an unfamiliar name to the majority of tennis fans. In fact, I only heard about him when casting about for the appropriate tennis news story to share as this week’s “News You Can Use” feature. Nick Taylor is a former #1 world ranked player in both singles and doubles. Still not ringing a bell? Taylor competes in the Quad Wheelchair division.
The late wildcard came as somewhat of a surprise. Taylor has not played a Grand Slam event since 2015. The opportunity came when another player in the draw had to drop out. This created a scramble for Taylor to get all the testing required for the Australian COVID protocols and travel to the event. USTA Missouri Valley published a terrific article detailing the logistical challenges.
Taylor is currently on the coaching staff of the men’s tennis team at Wichita State. The American Athletic Conference news service once ran a feature on him that includes footage of his play and coaching interactions with the team.
This awesome video of his kick serve was posted by the Wichita State Men’s Tennis twitter account a couple of years ago.
Nick Taylor, a three-time Paralympic gold medalist and Director of Operations, shows off his unique kick serve for the #bottlecapchallenge. #watchus #sctop10 #tennis #espn #kickserve #wheelchairtennis pic.twitter.com/cFGVD0NoWx
— Wichita State Men's Tennis (@GoShockersMTEN) July 19, 2019
At 41 years of age and based on his current ranking, Taylor is a long shot to win the tournament. It makes no difference to me. I now have a rooting interest in his draw at the Australian Open.
- Taylor Heads to Australian Open, Jerod Fox, USTA Missouri Valley, January 15, 2021.
