Great Britain became five-time men’s World Group champions at the 2026 BNP Paribas World Team Cup in Orlando, Florida, where Netherlands retained both the women’s and quad World Group titles.

A new era for World Tennis’s flagship wheelchair team event began with seeded nations Great Britain, Spain, Netherlands and Japan among five teams to have byes through to the men’s quarterfinals of the new knockout draw before Ben Bartram opened the first of two 2-0 victories for Great Britain with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Ji-Hwan Lee of Korea Republic.

A rematch of the 2023 men’s final produced a 2-0 victory over third seed Netherlands as Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid took the reins for Great Britain’s onward journey, while Daisuke Arai secured just his second career win over Dani Caverzaschi to help propel fourth seed Japan to a 2-0 victory over second seed Spain.

Not for the first time during the four days of competition in Orlando, extreme heat caused a lengthy delay in the final, with a near six-hour break in between Reid’s 6-2 6-2 win over Arai and Hewett’s US Open final rematch against world No.2 Tokito Oda.

But the much-anticipated contest between the world’s top two ranked players proved well worth waiting for as Oda outlasted Hewett to win 6-4 7-5, despite having been 2-0 down in the opening set and 3-0 down in the second set.

With the men’s doubles set to decide the 2026 men’s title, Arai and Oda briefly threatened to extend 26-time Grand Slam champions Hewett and Reid, but six games in a row saw Hewett and Reid lead Great Britain to a 6-2 6-2 win and a fifth men’s title since 2015.

Netherlands extend record women’s title haul to 35

China, P.R. and Japan have both joined record title winners Netherlands on the women’s World Group roll of honour at the BNP Paribas World Team Cup since 2017, but Asia’s leading two nations in women’s wheelchair tennis would go head-to-head in 2026 to decide who would earn the right to challenge the defending champions in the final.

Colombia and fourth weeds France joined the top three seeds in having byes through to the women’s quarter-finals, while Brazil’s 2-1 win over Chile and Germany’s 2-0 win over Great Britain provided the early first round talking points.

However, there were few dramas for the four seeded nations in the last eight, other than Germany’s Britta Wend taking Ksenia Chasteau to a third and deciding set for the fourth time in six career matches before Chasteau prevailed to help France to a semi-final against Netherlands.

While Aniek van Koot and Diede de Groot would lead Netherlands to a comfortable 2-0 victory in that semi-final, Japan went into their semi-final against the Chinese women’s team on the back of having lost their previous four World Team Cup women’s World Group ties to China, P.R.

But any prospects of a fifth success for China, P.R. were soon dispelled as Momoko Ohtani defeated Wang Ziying 6-3 6-2 and world No.1 Yui Kamiji held on to defeat reigning Australian Open champion Li Xiaohui 6-4 7-5.

The tenth women’s final since 2001 between Netherlands and Japan promised much, especially after Ohtani has split the first two set of her singles match against Van Koot. However, with the temperatures even hotter than the tennis on display on the centre court, the women’s final was subject to the same lengthy delay as the men’s final.

When the two players returned to court some six hours later, Van Koot wrapped up the match 6-3 3-6 6-4 and De Groot went on to beat Kamiji 6-1 6-1 in arguably her finest performance against the world No.1 since De Groot returned to competition in May 2025 after her eight month break for from the sport for hip surgery.

Schroder and Vink seal fifth Dutch quad title in six years

The only time in the last six years that Netherlands have not appeared on the quad World Group roll of honour at the BNP Paribas World Team Cup came in 2024 as Sam Schroder and Niels Vink chose to forego the World Team Cup in favour of focusing on their preparations for the Paris 2014 Paralympics.

But, with the world’s top two players once again at the helm for the reigning champions, wresting the title way from the Dutch team was always going to be a difficult proposition for any of the other seven teams – and so it proved.

In the absence of Schroder and Vink, Chile would go on and lift the quad title in 2024, but it was Schroder and Vink who cut the Chilean team challenge short in this year’s semi-finals, Schroder defeating Diego Perez 6-1 6-3 before Vink’s 6-1 6-2 win over Francisco Cayulef.

Having beaten record-holding nine-time champions USA 2-0 in the quarter-finals, thereby ending David Wagner’s hopes of a medal in his final World Team Cup, Netherlands ultimately faced two-time former champions and second seeds Australia in this year’s title decider after

Heath Davidson and Jin Woodman had beaten Israel’s Noam Gershony and Guy Sasson 0-6 6-4 (10-5) in a deciding doubles contest in the last four. But their hopes of taking the top seeds to a doubles decider in the final soon ebbed away as Netherlands claimed their fifth quad title following Schroder’s 6-3 6-4 win over Davidson and Vink’s 6-3 6-0 defeat of Woodman.