Wheelchair tennis star wants grand slam glory

: Tennis player Shingo Kunieda wants to clinch this year's British Open to achieve a grand slam.

But the 23-year-old Japanese, paraplegic from childhood due to spinal cord cancer and confined to a wheelchair, also wants to be treated like any other athlete.

The world number one in wheelchair tennis once regretted he could not play the same sports as his friends.

But now, he says: "My life is great."

"I don't think I'm doing a sport for the disabled," he said at a tennis club in the Tokyo suburb of Kashiwa, where Japan's top tennis players -- in wheelchairs or not -- practice daily.

"I'm an athlete. I'm playing tennis. That's all. I bet wheelchair tennis is as great and attractive as other sports for non-handicapped people."