The UNIQLO Interview: Jose Pablo Gil

With plenty of wheelchair tennis history still to be written at the Tokyo Paralympics ahead of the start of the medal matches, among the historic moments already recorded is Costa Rica’s addition to the list of countries that have contested the Paralympic Tennis Event.

It’s a remarkable story, and one that has been played out entirely during the last Paralympic cycle. If the Covid-19 pandemic had not resulted in the postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympics, Costa Rica’s wheelchair tennis debut at the Games may well have been delayed until Paris 2024.  

“It’s crazy how things work,” says Jose Pablo Gil, the man at the heart of the story, the man who has this week made Paralympic history for his country.

Gil started playing tennis when he was 10. Such was his talent that by the time he was 13 he had been awarded a scholarship to study and play tennis in the USA, and was soon mixing it with some of the brightest stars that tennis has to offer.

“I got to play in many big tournaments, won some international tournaments, became the best player in my country for many years and also played against and in doubles with so many big players that are in the Top 100 and Top 50 of the ATP - players like Andrey Rublev and Frances Tiafoe,” he says.

He returned to Costa Rica at the age 18 and began preparing for university with a tennis scholarship in California. As the Rio 2016 Paralympics approached, a car accident changed his plans.

“Yes, I was going to college one day after my accident, I was going to California,” says Gil, now 26. “My accident was on 21 August 2016. I celebrated my five years here in Tokyo.”

The accident resulted in Gil suffering fractures to his pelvis and his spine, and a punctured lung, as well as a blood clot on his brain. He was in a coma for two weeks. However, less than sixth months later he was out of hospital and had started on his wheelchair tennis journey.

After initially trying wheelchair basketball – he is still a member of Costa Rica’s national team – Gil decided to focus on tennis.

“I really enjoy sport, so I do every sport I can. I really love sport,” he insists. “Then with my injury I was just curious to try tennis. Tennis gave me so many opportunities in my life that I couldn’t just leave or give up on tennis.”

It was as a 13-year-old, in 2009. that Gil first came across wheelchair tennis, having earned a place to compete at ‘Les Petits As’, the renowned junior tournament for non-disabled players in Tarbes, France. The tournament has a star-studded list of alumni, including the likes of former winners Rafa Nadal and Kim Clijsters, but it also home to the Cruyff Foundation Junior Masers, the premier tournament for the world’s leading young wheelchair tennis players.

When Gil was in Tarbes in 2009, Gordon Reid was the boys’ singles champion and Jordanne Whiley won the girls’ singles title at the Junior Masters. Three weeks after Gil’s car accident, Reid had been crowned Rio 2016 Paralympic champion, with Whiley also making the women’s doubles podium for the second time. Now, in Tokyo he has lined up alongside them as a wheelchair player.   

Gil made his debut on the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour in December 2017 at the Colombia Open, where he won his first singles match and played alongside fellow Costa Rican Valeria Valverde, who contested the women’s draws for the second year in a row.

He played outside of South America for the first time in 2018, and in 2019 claimed his first singles and doubles titles at the Mazatlan Open in Mexico, defeating the USA’s Conner Stroud, a fellow Paralympic debutant in Tokyo, in the singles final.

He also reached his career-best men’s singles ranking to date in March 2019, climbing to No. 49 after reaching the second round of a Super Series tournament for the first time at the Cajun Classic and went on to reach the quarter-finals of the Parapan American Games.

With racket skills acquired from his life as a talented junior player, learning the movement patterns needed to become an accomplished wheelchair player was among the list of challenges for Gil as he set out on his current journey in late 2016. But they were challenges he relished.

“It was really hard for me the first time, as I remembered what I was and how I used to play able-bodied tennis the first time I played with an everyday chair. There were very difficult things. The inverted backhand and also the mobility with the wheelchair, but it’s fun because it is difficult,” Gil says.

“Now I can say there are so many good people, players and coaches on the tour that help me to improve. Right now I train from four to six hours every day, five day per week.”

Among the players to have been awarded a Bipartite Commission (wild card) slot for the Tokyo Paralympic Tennis Event, Gil’s continued progress earned him the first set on his Paralympic debut here in Tokyo as he went up against Malaysia’s Abu Samah Borhan. Borhan ultimately prevailed 4-6 6-3 6-2 to advance to the second round of the men’s singles, but Gil had plenty to be pleased about. 

“It was a tough loss. I know I could win that match, but I’m satisfied with the match,” she says. “He beat me two months ago really easy [6-0 6-2 at the MTA Open in Turkey]. I’ve improved a lot in these two months.

“It’s amazing to achieve this. It was my dream since I was very little to be part of an Olympics and it has more value to me to be in the Paralympics. I know this achievement is not only for me, I know this can help the tennis in my country and also the wheelchair tennis, and to give the opportunity to other persons with any disabilities to dream and change their life. It has more value than anything in life.”

What does Gil regard as his greatest achievements in the last five years?

“To be part of the Top 50 so fast, to be winning tournaments in singles and in doubles and to be sharing the court with legendary players like Shingo and Gustavo,” he says.

Add to that making his Paralympic debut in a relatively short space of time and after an 18-month period that has provided so many challenges for the world. Jose Pablo Gil’s journey to Paris 2024 is well and truly under way, but he holds greater goals.

Asked about his future ambitions, he says: “To play and win a Grand Slam and to give Costa Rica a wheelchair tennis medal.”

Watch this space.