Hewett completes Rome double as Li breaks clay and ITF 1 title duck
Li Xiaohui and Alfie Hewett took the 2025 women’s and men’s singles titles at the Rome ITF 1 Series UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour event that runs alongside the last three days of the Internazionali BNL D’Italia as Li added more firsts to her career accolades, and not for the first time this season.
The Chinese 25-year-old has become no stranger to making headlines in the last year, whether it be for her first career victory over Diede de Groot at the 2024 BNP Paribas World Team Cup or for her first two Super Series singles titles both achieved this season after defeating world No.1 Yui Kamiji in the finals of both the Melbourne and the Japan Open.
However, Li now has her first ITF 1 Series singles title and, arguably just as important, her first clay court singles title as the world’s top stars build up to the Roland Garros wheelchair draw, which begins in a little over two weeks’ time.
World No.5 Li is now currently 114 points behind the world’s top four ranked players, 89 points nearer than she was before her Rome success, which included dropping just two games to both Angelica Bernal and Emmanuelle Morch and then defeating top seed Aniek van Koot 5-7 6-3 7-5 – also beating the world No.2 on clay for the first time.
Li’s hopes of securing the singles and doubles title-double in Rome ended in a deciding match tie-break in her opening match playing alongside Morch. However, Li’s loss was Bernal and Zhu Zhenzhen’s gain as the Colombian-Chinese duo’s challenge gathered pace to also beat Ksenia Chasteau and Van Koot in the 7-5, 6-0 in the women’s doubles final for their second title together and to see Bernal and Zhu go one better than last year in Rome.
Hewett retains men’s title 10 years on from first victory in Rome
Ten years on from Hewett defeating Tom Egberink in straight sets to win his first Rome men’s singles title. the world No. 2 came face-to-face with Egberink in the quarter-finals this year.
But with Egberink having taken his opening match in straight sets as he returned to competition for the first time in almost three months following a shoulder injury, any hopes of a deep run in Rome ended with a 7-6(4) 6-2 loss to Hewett.
Ruben Spaargaren and Gustavo Fernandez posed much greater problems for Hewett, but the top seed took two deciding sets by a margin of 6-4 to successfully defend the ITF 1 title he won in a final against Fernandez 12 months ago.
Spaargaren survived three three-set matches to reach his first singles final of the season, but despite the Dutchman achieving more against Hewett than he did in their 2022 Rome quarter-final, Hewett still held on this year for a 6-3 4-6-4 victory and his fourth singles title of the season.
With Spaargaren having had conflicting fortunes against Hewett and Gordon Reid in the singles draw, he and Martin de la Puente were the beneficiaries of Hewett and Reid withdrawing from the men’s doubles final, handing De la Puente and Spaargaren their fourth title as a partnership.