Netherlands net gold medal sweep at first European Para Championships
Ruben Spaargaren was left in a state of disbelief after his 7-5 5-7 6-4 victory over top seed Martin de la Puente proved to be the key result in host nation Netherlands achieving a clean sweep of the six wheelchair tennis gold medals at the inaugural European Para Championships in Rotterdam.
“Wow, this really was one to go down in the history books,” said No.6 Spaargaren, whose three-set victory earned him a direct qualification slot for the Paris 2024 Paralympic Tennis Event some 54 weeks out from the opening ceremony for the next Paralympic Games in France.
“To play such a match on home soil and to able to win it somehow… I mean, I still don’t know how I actually did it… It’s just amazing. It couldn’t get any better to be honest.”
While rain took the players off court in just the second game of the men’s final in the city centre’s Schouwburgplein venue, Spaargaren returned to court to come from 2-0 down to snatch the opening set and had two match points at 5-4 up in the second set before world No.4 De de la Puente forced a third set for the sixth time in their 14 career meetings.
“I have been active (in the tennis world) for quite some years already, but I think it’s only this year that I really managed to get into the top six/seven of the world. On that level, you really have to win from guys like Martin in order to win the titles,” added Spaargaren, who delivered a perfectly weighted backhand lob to convert his third match point and beat De la Puente for just the fifth time.
“To do it like this, in a long three-setter on the Schouwburgplein… I don’t think I could have dreamt of anything better than this.”
De Groot and Van Koot live up to top seedings
To win a gold medal in front of a home crowd is what every athlete dreams of and Diede do Groot is no stranger to tournaments wins on Dutch soil.
Most recently she achieved just that in Rotterdam in February, when beating Aniek van Koot in the inaugural women’s wheelchair singles final at the ABN AMRO Open at Ahoy Rotterdam, the complex that continues to play host this week to some of the nine other sports that feature at the European Para Championships.
A little over 6km from Ahoy Rotterdam, De Groot once again beat Van Koot to earn her own direct qualification slot for the Paris 2024 Paralympics, the world No.1’s 6-3 6-1 victory completing her 80th tournament victory at junior and senior level after four straight sets wins that took her ongoing winning streak to 118 matches.
“I’m actually very lucky that a lot of my family is from here, so for a lot of them it’s only a 10 or 15 minute drive,” said de Groot “I’m thrilled to have this opportunity of playing at home, playing for them and also have this. It’s such a special experience. It’s not just winning on a normal tennis court, it’s winning in the centre of the city, which is fun as well. It’s really exciting.”
The city centre venue for the last two of the six days of wheelchair tennis competition (Schouwburgplein) translates into English as ‘Theatre Square’ and all six medal matches involving Dutch players produced their own unique sporting theatre for the local fans to applaud – and they had plenty to applaud.
Vink and Schroder dominate quad draws
Niels Vink and Sam Schroder came into the final day having already secured the first of the nine Dutch medals after beating Turkey’s Ugur Altinel and Ahmet Kaplan 6-1 6-1 in the quad doubles final.
And so the stage was set for the world’s top two players to contest their 15th successive quad singles final and their seventh this season.
Only once this year has Schroder got the better of world No. 1 Vink – in the final of the Australian Open – and the 20-year-old top seed came through again to claim his 33rd match win in a row, taking the opening set with a high-bouncing serve that left Schroder baffled before squeezing a cross court backhand winner past the world No. 2 to complete a 6-4 6-2 victory.
“To clinch the European title in front of the home crowd is just superb, it’s amazing,” said Vink. “My match wasn’t perfect, but it was good (enough). I really had to adjust to the court here (at Schouwburgplein), because it’s very different compared to the one at TV Victoria, where we played our previous games. But I think I played very well. The level in the final was quite high.”
De Groot and Spaargaren both ended the final day of play with two gold medals apiece, with De Groot and Van Koot beating British second seeds Cornelia Oosthuizen and women's singles bronze medallist Lucy Shuker 6-1 6-1 in the women’s doubles final.
Meanwhile Spaargaren teamed up with men's singles bronze medallist Maikel Scheffers to beat French fourth seeds Nicolas Charrier and Geoffrey Jasiak by the same score in the men’s doubles final.
In all, Dutch players won nine of the 18 medals across the six singles and doubles draws, with Spain, Turkey, Germany and Great Britain leaving Rotterdam with two medals apiece. Charrier and Jasiak took the men’s doubles silver medal back to France, which will host the biggest celebration of Paralympic sport in just over a year.