3 Floridians Named to U.S. Wheelchair Tennis Squad for World Team Cup

Orlando’s Mackenzie Soldan and Gulfport’s Chris Herman as players, and Orlando’s Jason Harnett as a coach were named by the United States Tennis Association (USTA) to the teams that will compete for the U.S. at the 2018 BNP Paribas World Team Cup.

The international wheelchair tennis competition will be held on May 28-June 3 at TC Sprenkelaar and TV De Maaten the Baia in Apeldoorn, Netherlands. The World Team Cup is the International Tennis Federation’s flagship wheelchair tennis event, often referred to as the Davis Cup and Fed Cup of wheelchair tennis.

A total of 44 teams representing 24 countries will take part in the 2018 competition in the Netherlands. Teams will compete in four separate divisions: women’s (12 nations), quad (8 nations), men’s (16 nations) and junior event (8 nations).

The American women’s and quad teams will look to improve on their bronze medal performances from last year’s event. The women’s bronze last year was their best result since 2003. The men’s team will once again be back in the World Group after the Americans qualified after falling out of the Top 12 two years ago. 

The U.S. junior team, a three-time champion, will not be competing for an unprecedented fourth title as the U.S. juniors have aged out and will be representing Team USA in the men’s division.

The inaugural event was held in California in 1985 involving six men’s teams. The women’s competition began the following year, with quad and junior events introduced in 1998 and 2000, respectively. The USTA was officially designated by the USOC as the national governing body for the Paralympic sport of wheelchair tennis in June 2002, becoming the first Olympic national governing body to earn this recognition.

For more information or to see the full U.S. team rosters go to www.usta.com/news.