South Africa quad team make BNP Paribas World Team Cup history
South Africa’s quad team made BNP Paribas World Team Cup history on the fourth day of this year’s competition after becoming the first African team to reach one of the four championship finals at the ITF’s flagship wheelchair tennis team event.
After successive bronze medals in 2019 and 2021, South Africa can look forward to an upgrade this year, but to lift the World Team Cup trophy in Saturday’s final and take home the gold medals, Donald Ramphadi, Lucas Sithole and Danny Mohlamonyane will need to find a formula to turn round the result of their round-robin group contest against top seeds Netherlands.
South Africa started this year’s event as seventh seeds, due to former world No. 2 Lucas Sithole currently not having a ranking. However, with the 2013 US Open champion returning to international competition this week for the first time since September 2019, his experience of playing at the highest level paid off, even if he is yet to regain peak performance, as he launched South Africa’s 2-1 win over a Brazilian team also looking to reach a first World Team Cup final.
Sithole held off Leandro Pena 6-2 2-6 6-2 in his first career match against the Brazilian, but world No. 7 Ramphadi was in no mood to entertain any thoughts of a third set against world No. 8 Ymanitu Silva, racing through the second singles match 6-0 6-1.
“I’m very excited for us to be going to the finals for the first time,” said 28-year-old Ramphadi. “I’m very happy with how my teammate Lucas played, because he really made the job easier for me, but then also for my own performance. And to be the first team from Africa to make it to the World Team Cup finals and for me to be a part of that, I’m really happy.”
Having beaten South Africa 3-0 in their group match that spanned two days of play due to rain, Netherlands' Sam Schroder and Niels Vink again set out on a mission in their semi-final against USA.
The world’s top two ranked players showed why they look set to dominate the sport for some time to come, Schroder defeating USA team debutant Eric Court 6-0 6-0 and world No. 1 Vink producing another clinical performance to beat former world No. 1 David Wagner 6-0 6-2.
Australia and Great Britain head junior semi-finalists
In 2019 Australia and Great Britain fought out a memorable match tie-break at the end of the deciding doubles match in the World Team Cup junior final.
Three years later they could be set for another title decider after topping their respective round-robin groups, with France and Netherlands completing a semi-final line-up featuring three previous champions of the Johan Cruyff Foundation-supported junior event.
Great Britain’s Joshua Johns, Andrew Penney and Dahnon Ward combined to earn Great Britain a 3-0 win over Brazil in their last contest in Group A. The British team had previously beaten France and USA 3-0, but as France met USA in a must-win contest for both teams it was the French duo of Ksenia Chasteau and Justin Michel that won the deciding doubles match tie-break for a 6-4 5-7 (10-8) victory.
As Australia ended their Group B contests with a 3-0 win over Argentina, Netherlands 2-0 win over 2021 champions Japan does not do justice to the competitiveness of the tie, with both singles rubbers going to three sets.
Great Britain will face Netherlands and Australia will play France in Friday's semi-finals.