Wheelchair tennis has a special place in the hearts of Japanese people. Japanese player Shingo Kunieda is considered the greatest male wheelchair player in history with 50 major career titles including 4 Paralympic gold medals.

Kunieda is Tournament Director at the Uniqlo Wheelchair Tennis Tour at the Kinoshita Group Japan Open Tennis Championships where Number 1 seed Oda Tokito is also the youngest participant at 17 years old. Kunieda says of this promising new contender “There has been no one in history with that high level of perfection at such a young age” he commented. “He has what it takes to create a new world in wheelchair tennis”.

Today Oda showed his best wheelchair tennis when he took on his first round match rival Yoshinobu Fujimoto who is 30 years his senior at 47 years old in front of a densely packed tennis court number 5 at the Ariake Tennis Centre. Oda took down his rival in straight sets 6-1, 6-0.

Oda was very dynamic on court moving constantly while waiting for serve and then moving in frankly to take his opponents serve early. He went on to overpower his opponent 6-1, 6-0 finishing with his characteristic powerful forehand shot. The statistics show a very determined Oda who overpowered Fujimoto with an 87% win rate on first serve and a 73% 2nd serve success rate. He won 69% on first return and an outstanding 75% break points won compared to Fujimoto’s 0%.

This was a significant victory for Oda having lost again Fujimoto 4 times. At the post match press conference Oda said “I felt confident today. Even though it will be a tight schedule to get to the Masters in Madrid, I felt compelled to play in my home country. Following a loss at the US Open French player Stephane Houdet, Oda was looking forward to his opportunity for revenge. Houdet is the only foreignor who traveled all the way to Japan no doubt in pursuit of facing again one of the most promising young tennis wheelchair players on the ATP circuit. Oda goes on to play against Kouhei Suzuki in the 2nd round of the Uniqlo Wheelchair Tennis Tour.