Quad tennis great Dylan Alcott announces he will retire after the 2022 Australian Open

After 23 grand slams over an incredible six-year period, the greatest quad tennis player of all time is putting away the racquet because ‘I don‘t want to be that old guy who is hanging on.’

As champagne bottles were being popped with his name up in lights behind him, Dylan Alcott quickly slipped back to the moment tennis changed his life.

The greatest quad wheelchair tennis player of all time was at his second home, Melbourne Park, to announce that January‘s Australian Open was going to be his last.

Alcott recalled how he hated himself as a kid, was bullied because of his disability but everything changed when he attended the Thurgoona Open tennis tournament, near Albury, as an 11-year-old.

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Dylan Alcott has called time on a remarkable career.

“I saw a 20-year-old bloke driving a car — I didn’t know you could drive a car. He had a wife — I didn’t know you could have a wife. He had kids — I didn’t know you could have kids. And he was happy,” Alcott said.

“That social part of tennis changed my life immediately. I realised I could have a life, it gave me a purpose, it introduced me to people who were like me. Mate, geez I’m glad I did that.”

And now Alcott smiles when he sees television ads promoting the sport and he‘s right there alongside Ash Barty and Rafael Nadal.

“It‘s incredible what we have all been able to achieve,” he says.

”To watch those TV ads, it just feels normal now and this place has set the tone for it all.

Australia’s Dylan Alcott with his quad singles gold medal at the Tokyo Paralympic Games.

“I’m super proud and probably more proud of the work we’ve done off the court to be honest. Being a good tennis player is probably the 32nd priority of my life, and I mean that.

“Being a good person is No. 1, a good family member, a good friend, a good partner to my partner Chantelle, and being a good advocate for my community to change perceptions for people like me so they can live the lives they deserve to live and get the opportunities that I’ve had. I’m so lucky.

“It’s not me, it’s we — we’ve all done this, my team, my family, some are here today, my doubles partner Heath, everybody that’s a part of what we do. It’s a big juggernaut but it’s really changed perceptions, I hope.”

Alcott is chasing his 16th grand slam singles title in January and his eighth straight Australian Open crown. He already has 23 grand slam titles to his name, 15 singles and eight doubles.

He is coming off the best season of his career where he completed the Golden Slam, winning the gold medal at the Tokyo Paralympics and the four grand slam quad wheelchair singles titles.

Alcott celebrates with the US Open trophy to complete his remarkable Golden Slam.

The 30-year-old is a four-time Paralympic gold medallist, one of those coming in basketball in Beijing in 2008.

His expanding business and media career helped accelerate the decision to hang up the racquet, with Alcott also hinting at an acting career.

“I work in the media, I have a consultancy company which educates people about disability, a food company, a foundation, I want to do some acting, I‘m writing a script,” he said.

“I heaps of ideas, there are lots of things I want to do. I‘m spinning all these plates at the moment and it’s hard to do.

“I think I have done everything that I need to do here, I don‘t want to be that old guy who is hanging on getting beaten.

“So the time has come to move onto other things, but in saying that I‘m going to train my arse off in the next two months, to try and go out on a high.

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