Preview: 2025 Roland Garros Wheelchair Championships
Some 270 days since Tokito Oda’s iconic men’s singles gold medal-winning moment brought the curtain down on the action at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Tennis Event, wheelchair tennis returns to Roland Garros from 3-7 June as Paris 2024 gold medallists Oda, Yui Kamiji and Niels Vink top the entry list of 40 players for the men’s, women’s and quad draws at the second Grand Slam of 2025.
Oda, Alfie Hewett and Gustavo Fernandez, the three most recent different Roland Garros men’s singles champions to still be active, were the three Paris 2024 men’s singles medallists and there is every reason to suspect that they will be among the main protagonists for semi-final and final spots towards the end of the five days of competition in Paris in the week ahead.
Since his enthralling Paralympic men’s singles gold medal match against Hewett last September, Oda’s only recent competitive clay court matches have come when helping Japan to win the BNP Paribas World Team Cup at the beginning of May.
Meanwhile, if recent clay court form is a factor, Hewett has twice beaten Fernandez during the ITF 1 tournaments in Munich and Rome, with Fernandez prevailing at the Tram Barcelona Open in Hewett’s absence.
While home favourite Stephane Houdet, another former men’s singles champion at Roland Garros, can never be discounted from calculations, world No. 3 Martin de la Puente will arrive in Paris as the most recent winner of an ITF 1 Series clay court tournament after his victory at the Open International de Royan.
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Arguably the most intriguing storyline coming in to Roland Garros this year is Diede de Groot’s return to Grand Slam competition, especially in the context of how her Paris 2024 campaign ended and the ever-present challenges posed by her main rivals, particularly those from China, P.R. and Japan.
Current world No. 1 Kamiji’s victory over De Groot in the Paris 2024 women’s singles gold match reverberated around the world as Japan’s most successful Paralympic Tennis Event to date also included victory over the Netherlands in the women’s doubles gold medal match.
After eight months away from wheelchair tennis for planned hip surgery, rehab and the opportunity to refresh mentally and physically, current world No.3 De Groot returns to Paris this month as a five-time-Roland Garros champion. She is one victory away from equalling Esther Vergeer’s record six Roland Garros women’s singles crowns.
Since 2017, only De Groot and three-time champion Kamiji have lifted the women’s singles trophy at the second Grand Slam of the year and since 2018 five of the seven finals have been between De Groot and Kamiji.
However, 12 months ago De Groot overcame a Chinese opponent in a Grand Slam singles final for the first time after Kamiji’s campaign ended in the quarter-finals and Zhu Zhenzhen took the opening set of the final off De Groot.
Zhu arrives in Paris this year having beaten her compatriot Li Xiaohui in the women’s singles final in Royan on Saturday to claim the last clay court ITF 1 title before Roland Garros.
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During De Groot’s time away from wheelchair tennis Li, the player who ended De Groot’s 145-match winning streak in May 2024, has won two Super Series singles titles this season, beating Kamiji in both finals. Meanwhile, with De Groot currently unbeaten in seven clay court matches since launching her comeback to competition less than a month ago, Li took the opening set off De Groot in the final of the recent Tram Barcelona Open. The Chinese player will begin her 2025 Roland Garros campaign at a new career high of No. 4 following her progress to the final in Royan and will face De Groot in her opening match in Paris.
There are endless strands that could be explored ahead of what will be a fascinating women’s singles draw in Paris in the week ahead and that is without mentioning the likes of world No. 2 and multiple Roland Garros finalist Aniek van Koot, former champion Jiske Griffioen and Wang Ziying.
Roland Garros provided the backdrop for two career highlights for Guy Sasson in 2024 after he won his first Grand Slam singles title 12 month ago and, some three months later, won the quad singles bronze medal at the Paris 2024 Paralympic Tennis Event.
Sasson’s debut Roland Garros singles title came at the expense of Sam Schroder, while his chances of playing for the gold medal at Paris 2024 ended against Schroder and once again it is Dutch players who head the field of eight quad division players for another Grand Slam.
Sasson’s victory over Schroder last June in a final set tie-break was the first of three three-set matches between the two players in their last four meetings and their most recent head-to-head, in the 2025 Melbourne Open semi-finals, also ended in world No.3 Sasson prevailing in a final set tie-break.
Schroder, runner-up the last four quad singles finals, comes into this year’s Roland Garros campaign just needing the biggest of all annual clay court titles to complete the career Grand Slam. He denied fellow Dutchman Niels Vink the chance of the same achievement after defeating Vink to win his fourth successive Australian Open title in January.
Vink is in a much better place than he was 12 months ago, the second half of his 2024 season having included victory over Schroder in the Paris 2024 quad singles gold medal match. This season his loss to Schroder In the Australian Open final is currently his only defeat in 27 matches and he recently retained his clay court title at the ITF 1 Series Tram Barcelona Open.
Apart from Sasson, if anyone among the remaining five players can prevent Schroder and Vink from setting up an all-Dutch final for the third time in four years, it could be Ahmet Kaplan.
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Sasson’s opponent in the Paris 2024 bronze medal play-off, Kaplan earned his first career win over Schroder earlier this season, albeit on the hard courts at the Cajun Classic and his final prep for Roland Garros saw Kaplan earn the clay court title in Royan just four days before the quad singles draw gets underway in Paris on Wednesday.
Of the other four players in the quad draw, Andy Lapthorne is a former quad singles finalist in Paris.
With the draw taking place on the afternoon of Monday, 2 June, wheelchair tennis begins at Roland Garros on Tuesday, 3 June with the first round matches in the men’s and women’s singles. The quad singles draw begins on Wednesday, 4 June, with the three doubles finals scheduled for Friday, 6 June and the three singles finals scheduled for Saturday, 7 June.