As celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of wheelchair tennis continued at Roland Garros, one of the greats of the sport spoke with pride about how far the sport has come.

Prior to Dutch icon Diede de Groot taking to the court, the ITF welcomed the latest inductees into the Wheelchair Tennis Hall of Champions. A distinguished group of French players and contributors were recognised for their impact on the sport.

The induction ceremony took place on Court Suzanne-Lenglen, with the inductees honoured at a special presentation hosted by ITF President David Haggerty and French Tennis Federation President Gilles Moretton.

Following the celebrations, De Groot defeated Luoyao Guo, before saying the evolution of wheelchair tennis had been remarkable.

“Tennis has come so far since 50 years ago and some of the champions who were playing then see the game now and cannot believe it," she said. "I spoke to someone in Australia (in January) and they said, 'Wow, this is amazing'.

“Even though I sometimes feel like our game can still get so much better, if you hear the amazing comments from those champions, they see us play at the biggest stages in the world, which is great, and it's important for us, as players, to sometimes recognise how far we've come.

“When you're playing, you always want the best out of everything and you look at some small things which can get better, but actually when you look back, it's like, ‘Okay, I have to be grateful, because we've come so far.’ That's a really good thing, I think, as well.”

As an example of progress, De Groot praised Roland Garros for running junior tournaments at the clay court haven. This, for De Groot, is another step in the sport’s development that will benefit future generations. 

“If you look at the juniors now, there's a junior draw here, in Australia and at the US Open as well," she added. "That is something that I, as a junior, never had and that's only 10 years ago.

“For them now, that's like a normality. We need to remind them that we're the ones that fought for this, and you guys are now enjoying all the hard work that all of the 50 years of wheelchair tennis champions played for. 

“It's one of those things where we still want to grow so much more, but also we're very grateful for how far we've come.”

De Groot, who on Friday faces No.1 seed Yui Kamiji in their 69th meeting, said this initiative should increase depth as teenage talents are exposed to the habits of the senior stars.

“You look at the level that is above you when you're a junior. You look at the level of the No.1 and you think, ‘Okay, I need to get to at least that and maybe even better,’” she said.

“That's how you see that in all of the junior generations who are growing up. They saw Shingo Kunieda play, so Tokito Oda thought, ‘I need to do this better.’ I saw Esther Vergeer and Aniek van Koot and I thought, ‘Okay, I need to do that and be even better.’ And that's how this generation is growing up.

“They want to be superstars. They want to be so good at tennis that people want to watch them and want to buy tickets for them. That is a really big compliment and it's a really big achievement for us that so many players see the level grow. And I think we will see it grow for the next 50 years. I can't wait to see that.”

As an illustration of the remarkable talent in wheelchair tennis, the most recent of the 29-year-old’s 23 Grand Slam singles titles came at Roland Garros two years ago.

But after winning a WC1000 in Barcelona last week, which included a good triumph over Kamiji in the semi-finals, De Groot looks close to the form that made her a dominant No.1.

She handled the talent of Guo and also the challenging wind well on Thursday. 

“It's very tricky. You feel like the clay is everywhere. It is in my eyes and, when I sneeze, it's orange,” she said.

“But it's one of those things where you have to stay so calm and don't get bothered by things that you cannot control.” 

A full list of results from the 2026 Roland Garros Wheelchair Championships is available here