Australian Open commentator Dylan Alcott sets his sights on acting

When Dylan Alcott was growing up, he didn’t see people like him represented in the media. There were no guys in wheelchairs reading the news or acting in movies; no one knew the names of para-athletes. And even by the time he played professional tennis at his first Australian Open — he has since won six men’s quad wheelchair singles Grand Slam titles — it wasn’t exactly to a crowd of fans.

“There were four people watching me, in person,” Alcott says. 

How times have changed. His matches now attract thousands of viewers at Rod Laver Area and a million more on TV.

“If you had told me when I was a little kid as I was watching the Davis Cup that I would one day be there and it would be a full stadium, I would have told you to get stuffed.”

Now he’s aiming to redress the deficits of his past; having already been a success on radio, he is back for a third year commentating on the Australian Open as part of Channel Nine’s team – a role he takes just as seriously as his training. 

“You’ve got to study because you want to know what you’re talking about,” he says. “I really enjoy the experience and I enjoy broadcasting because when I was a youngster, I never saw anybody with a disability on TV, radio [or in the] newspaper.”

And now he’s got his sights set on acting. “Sometimes when there’s a character in a wheelchair, an able-bodied actor sits in that wheelchair. It’s like, ‘No, get an actor who’s [already] in a wheelchair – what are you doing?’ So I want to have a crack, even if I might not be any good at it. I’m not the kind of person to put up goals on a board or anything, but when I want to do something, I try to find a way to do it.” 

It’s all about breaking down barriers, which is why he’s also keen to talk openly about life with his partner of two years Chantelle Otten, a psycho-sexologist. The pair prefer to be open about sexuality – they’d like to dispel the notion that able-bodied and disabled people can’t date each other, and in general, he wishes that people with questions would just ask them – politely, of course. 

“Don’t think, ‘I might stuff it up.’ As long as you do it with tact. Of course you’ve got to ask questions, because that normalises things.” 

There’s no problem calling him ‘disabled’ either.

“It’s always funny when you sometimes get introduced and people go, ‘Oh, he’s the … differently … abled … person!’ I love the word disabled because that’s what I am. I think more people need to be proud of their disability because if there’s a negative stigma, it makes it hard.”  

Having turned 30 in December without much fanfare (he was in training for the Australian Open) 2021 holds the promise of competing in the French Open, Wimbledon and the Paralympics in Tokyo. In his downtime, there’s his partner, their new dachshund dog Sauce – “a Covid puppy!” – and a food venture he’s started with old school friends, Able Foods, which are NDIS funded ready-made meals designed for people with disabilities. 

When you speak to Alcott for a few minutes, it’s unsurprising that he’s such a high achiever.

“I’m a really positive person. It’s not the events in your life that dictate the life you live, it’s how you perceive them. People often come up to me or my parents and say, ‘I feel really sorry for you because you’re disabled.’ I say, ‘Don’t feel sorry for me! I live the best life in the world!’” 

Dylan Alcott will be a commentator on Nine’s broadcast of the 2021 Australian Open, starting February 8. As a player, he will be looking to make it seven straight Australian Open quad singles titles.