The wheelchair tennis matches are among the most exciting games you can see at Wimbledon this year

This year's Wimbledon Championships were supposed to be predictable but they have been anything but that. The all-conquering Novak Djokovic's quest for a Golden Slam was rudely crashed over two days by relative unknown Sam Querrey, who himself went on to lose. Garbine Muruguza, the reigning French Open champion, also made an early exit.

But away from these upsets, something entirely new was taking place at the 2016 Championships with the introduction of men’s and women’s singles in the wheelchair tennis category.

After years of doubles’ events, this year’s Championships mark the 40th anniversary of the existence of this version, and its 10th anniversary at Wimbledon, by inaugurating the singles competition with a prize-money of £25,000 for each of the winners, and £12,500 for the runners up.

Obviously, money is peanuts compared to the men’s and women’s singles champions making £2 million pounds, but the players and the All England Club have welcomed the event. World No. 1 Shingo Kuneida said the singles category will be a “hard test”, and that he believed the athletes could put on “a great competition” – a feeling echoed by The All England Club’s chief executive Richard Lewis.

A different sport, mind you

Kuneida’s comments about a great competition for the crowds could very well be the remedy for a fan looking for something new amidst the increasing homogeneity of strategy and style that new-age tennis and its hard base-liner champions are bringing to the table.

By contrast, when played on specialised wheelchairs by players with “reduced physical ability” in their “lower extremities”, as specified in the rules, all strategies of conventional tennis can go out of the window, since this format allows for not one but two drops of the ball while all the other dimensions and rules of the court and the match remain the same.

That stipulation alone accounts for a very different sort of sport, featuring exciting tennis and some great moments. Wheelchair tennis has been growing in popularity ever since American Hall-of-Famer Brad Parks met with a skiing accident and decided to reinvent his career playing tennis on wheelchairs in 1976.

By 1982, France had the world’s first wheelchair tennis programme, and by the 1992 Summer Paralympics in Barcelona, it was an official Paralympic sport, soon getting its own tour under the International Tennis Federation in 1992, and on its way to the Grand Slams following a boost in awareness and popularity around the 2000 Paralympics in Sydney.

Today, the wheelchair tennis tour has over 160 events, including all four Grand Slams since 2007, and going all the way to the inaugural singles event at Wimbledon this year, giving the format its complete range and setting the stage for some fascinating action over three sets in five categories.

No comparisons, please

Despite this steady rise in events and competition, audiences haven’t quite yet taken to the format in terms of viewership, and even at Wimbledon, the category remains largely neglected. In fact, even the Wimbledon’s website’s schedules page only started listing the schedule for the Wheelchair category after the quarter-finals began on Thursday. As for viewership on television, it is virtually unheard of.

Part of the reason for this is the dogma of therapy associated with the sport, which leads to the perception of the game being more of a therapeutic exercise than a competitive sports. There is also the notion that the game would be deficient in quality compared to the regular categories.

The truth, of course, is that wheelchair tennis is played to different standards altogether. Similar to the serve stances or baseline coverage that separates the greats from the also-rans, a whole new set of variables apply to this category. To compare it with regular tennis is pointless. Take it on its own terms, and you will see a sport just as competitive and skilful as any other involving a tennis racket and tennis balls.