Diede de Groot, Niels Vink and Alfie Hewett secured the first Super Series singles titles of the 2022 UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour after victories in the women’s, quad and men’s singles finals at the Melbourne Open leave them in fine heart going into the first Grand Slam of the year at the Australian Open.

Winner of the Golden Slam in 2021, De Groot began her 2022 season in fine style as she avenged her loss to Yui Kamiji in last year’s Melbourne Open women’s final. The world No. 1’s 6-2 6-1 win in just 49 minutes ended Kamiji’s hopes of back-to-back titles at the Hume Tennis and Community Centre in Craigieburn in the northern suburbs of Melbourne as the world’s top two players met in their 15th final in their last 15 head-to-heads.

“I feel very good, it was a very strong performance, I think, after a week of training here and preparing for those first matches of the year,” said De Groot. "It’s nice to come out with a win. I’m ready (for the Australian Open). I’ve played some good matches here and I’ve also been working on some stuff and that’s come out in the matches (this week), so I’m ready to go for real now.”

De Groot dominated proceedings from the outset as she secured the 11th Super Series singles title of her career, a sequence of eight points unanswered by Kamiji giving the Dutch top seed a 4-1 lead as Kamiji struggled to find any rhythm on her serve and ended the opening set with a double fault.

Kamiji managed to stem De Groot’s momentum at 4-0 down in the second set as the Japanese second seed produced a more aggressive and consistent game, but she soon found herself 5-1 down and De Groot wrapped up a clinical performance with an ace as she served out the match to love.

World No. 3 Vink reversed the result of his quad singles semi-final against countryman Sam Schroder at last week’s Victorian Open to clinch the third Super Series title of his career.

The 19-year-old played the more aggressive game as he turned a 2-1 deficit into a 5-2 first set lead and converted his third set point with a cross court forehand winner.

Thereafter, Schroder’s biggest success of the second set came in taking the opening game and Vink wrapped up a convincing 6-3 6-1 victory with a forehand down the line after a little more than an hour of player.

Vink will now look to repeat his Melbourne Open success at his second Australian Open, having reached the quad singles semi-finals on his debut at Melbourne Park in 2021.                  

While De Groot made her 2022 tournament debut at the first Super Series event of the year, so did men’s world No. 2 Hewett after having to sit out the Victorian Open due to being in isolation.

His first match against Shingo Kunieda since the world No. 1 won their 2021 US Open final produced some tentative opening exchanges as both players began their first service games with doubles faults and the first six games went against serve.

Kunieda secured the first hold for a 4-3 lead before Hewett replied with a love service game, but at 4-4 and deuce Kunieda took an injury time-out and ultimately retired as he looks ahead to trying to add to his 46 Grand Slam titles at the Australian Open, thereby giving Hewett the fifth Super Series title of his career.

“Obviously it’s not the way I think anyone wants a final to go and I hope Shingo’s doing okay,” said Hewett. “It was a really close match, I thought, and it could have gone either way in that first set. It was difficult conditions today with the wind and there were lots of breaks of serve. I don’t necessarily feel like I was playing my best tennis. It was a little bit of an ugly set of tennis up to when he retired, but of course I’m happy to take home the title.

"There have been a lot of hours in the training block. I’m extremely grateful to Hume Tennis Centre for hosting us this week, we’re so close to Melbourne Park, so you feel like you’re almost there and I’m looking forward to getting started this Sunday."
 

Top seeds claim first Super Series doubles titles of 2022

Before going head-to-head in the first quad singles Super Series final of the year, Schroder and Vink claimed the Melbourne Open quad doubles title on the penultimate day of competition.

The reigning Paralympic and US Open champions, runners-up to Dylan Alcott and Heath Davidson at the Victorian Open, beat reigning Roland Garros and Wimbledon champions Andy Lapthorne and David Wagner 6-0 6-3 to seal their fourth Super Series doubles title together and remain unbeaten as a partnership at Super Series tournaments.

However, it was a victory that looked unlikely earlier in the week when Schroder and Vink had to save two match points before defeating Davidson and Rob Shaw 3-6 7-6(4) [12-10] in their semi-final.

There was a seventh Super Series title for De Groot and Aniek van Koot in the women’s doubles, the Tokyo Paralympic and Doubles Masters champions defeating Jiske Griffioen and Zhenzhen Zhu 6-1 6-4.

Meanwhile, Joachim Gerard and Stephane Houdet secured their second men’s doubles title in successive weeks and their first as a partnership at Super Series level.

However, it was a title that landed in much different circumstances to the deciding match tie-break they won at the Victorian Open, with top seeds Hewett and Gordon Reid handing their opponents a walkover as Reid seeks to deal with an injury ahead of the Australian Open.