Ten years on from making her debut in both the NEC Wheelchair Singles Masters and ITF Wheelchair Doubles Masters, South Africa’s Kgothatso Montjane remains in the mix for a place in the finals of both events this year.

Having already booked a place in the women’s doubles semi-finals in Oss, world No. 5 Montjane faces a must-win last round-robin group match against Japan’s Momoko Ohtani on Thursday as she bids to achieve the same in singles.

Depending on results, Montjane could yet face her doubles partner Yui Kamiji in the singles semi-finals, but Thursday’s doubles semi-finals will see the duo bid to maintain their record of reaching the final of every tournament they have played together to date.

“We haven't played together before this year solely because we are both lefties and it didn’t make sense,” says Montjane, who also jokingly throws in that Kamiji does not have her ‘favourite doubles partner’ anymore after Brit Jordanne Whiley retired last year. Together, Kamiji and Whiley won two Doubles Masters titles.

“Normally we used to believe that it makes a strong team when you have a right-handed player and a left-handed player, so I just hope we can keep trying things out, because this is a new partnership,” she adds. “So we'll just keep working on it and see how it goes. It would really mean a lot if we can get to the doubles final."

A relatively new partnership, Kamiji and Montjane only played together for the first time in May this year but in the intervening period they have won two titles and finished runners-up at two Grand Slams and one Super Series event. Their only losses before arriving in Oss had come against two-time Doubles Masters champions and this week’s top seeds Diede de Groot and Aniek van Koot.

Montjane and Kamiji booked their place in Thursday’s semi-finals after beating Lucy Shuker and Zhenzhen Zhu 6-2 6-2 to finish runners-up in their group to Jiske Griffioen and Ohtani. Next they play De Groot and Van Koot, with both Kamiji and Montjane having previous winning form against the reigning champions at the Grand Slams – Montjane when partnering Shuker at Wimbledon in 2021 and Kamiji when partnering Whiley in recent seasons.

The foremost African women’s wheelchair tennis player of all-time, Montjane is more than comfortable to be seen as a trailblazer and role model – that more important to her than realising that her latest Masters appearance comes 10 years on from her first.

“I’m just grateful for the consistency, to be honest, because I’ve not been counting. It's quite a milestone for me and I will use it as motivation to keep going,” she says.

"It’s really important for me to inspire young girls back home. There are not so many of us from Africa who are competitive at this level so, for me, I just think I need to keep doing what I'm doing and hopefully it will inspire the young ones to take it (wheelchair tennis) up and encourage them to never see wheelchair tennis as just a challenge, but also as a sport that can make you a living. I hope I can keep on being the best role model and inspiring the young ones."

Vink sees home Masters experience as fun, with no pressure

Niels Vink came into the third and last day of quad singles round-robin matches having already qualified for the semi-finals, so the fact that he did not get to play a competitive match was of little consequence other than the fact that the world No.1 was looking forward to facing 11-time champion David Wagner.

Wagner was forced to withdraw before the fourth day of play got underway after testing positive for Covid-19 - a circumstance that allowed Vink the opportunity to forge an impromptu partnership with Alfie Hewett. The world No. 1 quad singles and men’s singles players took on their respective coach in an exhibition tie-break.

“It was really nice to play with Alfie and our coaches, as unfortunately my opponent had to pull out. That’s a little bit sad, because I wanted to play, but it was nice to entertain the crowd,” said Vink, who is looking forward to hopefully entertaining a reported sell-out crowd for Sunday’s semi-finals.  

"My form from school came today so it was nice to show them a little bit about wheelchair tennis, too. I'm feeling really good, I’m playing good, everything is good.”

At just 19-years-old Vink is, like many of the Dutch players in Oss, playing his first Singles Masters on home soil.

“For me it’s more fun because I like it when my family and friends can watch, so I'm not feeling any pressure, just fun,” he added. “I heard that Sunday was sold out, so that's really nice and hopefully I will reach the final and then play for a big crowd.”

Vink advances to Friday’s quad singles semi-finals along with Donald Ramphadi after the South African beat Brazil’s Ymanitu Silva 6-1 5-7 6-2 in his remaining Group A match.

With Vink's countryman and world No.2 Sam Schroder having already been assured of his progression from Group B, Australia’s Heath Davidson will also feature in the last four after defeating his doubles partner Robert Shaw 6-3 2-6 6-3. Shaw threatened to bounce back from 4-1 down in the final set and had game points to level the set at 4-4, but his challenge fell away as Davidson wrapped up his win in an hour and 49 minutes.

Second seeds Alfie Hewett and Maikel Scheffers came back from losing their second men’s doubles Group B match to Ben Bartram and Tokito Oda, beating Daisuke Arai and Kouhei Suzuki 6-3 6-1 to join Bartram and Oda in Thursday’s semi-finals.

Bartram and Oda will play top seeds Martin de la Puente and Gustavo Fernandez, while Hewett and Scheffers take on the all-Dutch team of Tom Egerbink and Ruben Spaargaren for a place in Saturday's doubles finals.

Thursday's action in Oss will also feature the remaining men's and women's singles group matches.  

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