This month’s UNIQLO interview features former wheelchair tennis world No. 1 and four-time Paralympic medallist Michael Jeremiasz, who is now the tournament director of the French Riviera Open – an ITF 1 Series event taking place from 28 September - 3 October.

Michael Jeremiasz’s 15-year playing career “opened many doors”, not least of those has led to the annual staging of the French Riviera Open at the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy in Biot since 2017.

He first met Patrick Mouratoglou in late 2000, a few years after Mouratoglou set up his first tennis academy near Paris and towards the end of a year in which Jeremiasz had been injured in a skiing accident, resulting in his first experience of wheelchair tennis.

“I discovered wheelchair tennis by accident,” recalls Jeremiasz, who first picked up a racket aged five before going on to become a promising junior player. “I asked the sports teacher of my rehab centre if I could play, because I could see tennis courts, I explained that I used to play before my accident and they put me in a basketball chair to play.

“Shortly afterwards I had a visit from Pierre Fusade, the director of wheelchair tennis in France, we had a chat and I was invited to the World Team Cup, which was being held in Paris in 2000,” he continues. “I saw Ricky Molier, Robin Ammerlaan, David Hall and David Johnson play in the men’s final between the Netherlands and Australia. I looked at my family and said ‘one day I will beat those guys’. That’s where it all started.”

Jeremiasz’s playing career gathered rapid momentum and less than four years later he’d won his first two Paralympic medals – a bronze in men’s singles and a silver in men’s doubles.

“To be French champion in November 2001, it came quite quick and it made me think I really had potential and I really liked the sport,” he says as he recounts his personal career highlights.  “Then I would say my singles bronze medal in Athens in 2004. But my big pride was being No. 1 in the world in 2005, when I also beat David Hall in the French Open (Super Series) final 7-6 in the third after being behind 5-0. Of those original players I watched at the World Team Cup in 2000, he (Hall) was the last one left for me to beat. And, of course, there’s my gold medal with Stephane Houdet in Beijing in 2008.”

However, it’s off the tennis courts that Jeremiasz says he has experienced one of the proudest moments of his life.

“One of the most recent highlights, not just in my life as an athlete, but as a human being, was being flagbearer for France in Rio,” he says. “That was probably the biggest recognition of what I did as an athlete and it’s given me a voice to speak for my fellow disabled athletes.”

The Rio Paralympics was Jeremiasz’s last tournament as a player and he’d long since been planning what he wanted to do next. 

Michael Jeremiasz with Patrick Mouratoglou

“All my career, especially in the last year, I knew I wanted to organise tournaments and I wanted to be ambitious because I wanted to give back to the tour,” he says. “I think I was a challenging player for tournament organisers because I was always asking for more. I wanted the tournaments to be more and more professional. So now I feel it’s my turn to return the favour, which I’ve been trying to do for the last four years.”

“When I started, I wanted the tournament to be organised in the best way and I wanted to work with people who shared my vision. So I started with my close friend Cedric Mocellin, because he believes in the same things that I do,” explains Jeremiasz.

“I had first met Patrick in 2000 and now we are at his new academy with the tournament and have such great support from Patrick and all the staff. It’s an amazing place. The best in Europe, I think, and maybe the world, so we’re very lucky.” 

Jeremiasz joined a growing number of players who’ve gone on to become tournament directors with the arrival of the first French Riviera Open in 2017. But has the move from being a player to becoming an organiser changed his perspective on what the role entails?

“I knew already, back in the day (as a player), that tournament directors were doing a very hard job and anything I used to say or that I challenged then was to try a make things as professional as possible and that will never change,” he says.

“What I’ve discovered - and I would have put myself in these shoes at one time - is a certain lack of professionalism among some athletes in not communicating as we, as organisers, would expect. We have to chase for things all the time. It is a hard job because we have all the different parties to consider – the sponsors, the media, the ITF, the national federations and committees. The sport is growing, it’s becoming more professional, so then we expect all the people around the table to be more and more professional, too. That includes everyone I’ve just mentioned, but also the players.”

With the Covid-19 pandemic having had such an enormous impact on world sport and on society as a whole, finding the appropriate time to resume activities was always going to be a very difficult decision. The challenge of organising a tournament so early in the resumption on the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour is one that Jeremiasz and his team were always keen to take on.

“The biggest challenge has been getting the announcement about the resumption of the tour because you can’t organise a tournament in a couple of weeks,” he says. “You have to make bookings with hotels and all things like that. I’m aware that it’s a very hard time for everyone, but you have to convince people to invest money in the tournament, convince the media that it’s going to happen and so on. I’m very fortunate to work with very able people and some very strong partners.”

While the Tokyo Paralympics has been moved to 2021, it will be the turn of the city of Jeremiasz’s birth to stage the Games in 2024.

His success as an athlete and being flagbearer for France at the Rio Opening Ceremony has helped make Jeremiasz one of the most recognisable Paralympians in France. The 38-year-old’s own ambition has also helped to accelerate that process, with multiple media roles and a platform that’s enabled him to become an advocate for the rights of disabled people, both inside and outside of sport.

From playing wheelchair tennis with President Macron when Paris was a candidate city to being part of the Athletes’ Commission, Jereamiasz has big hopes for the impact of Paris 2024, when wheelchair tennis is set to be staged at Roland Garros.   

“The media is a big a part of raising the profile and we need to do that more and more. We saw how things were in London in 2012 in terms of the profile, the TV coverage and the marketing campaigns and that’s what I’m inspired by and that’s what I want to happen (for Paris 2024),” he says.

In 2012, Jeremiasz, his wife Carolyn and brother Jonathan set up the charity ‘Comme Les Autres’, (Like The Others), which aims to give newly-injured disabled people the chance to experience a range of activities and sports as a tool to building self-confidence and rediscovering their place in society.

A TV documentary about the organisation drew millions of viewers in France earlier this year and Jeremiasz enjoys experiencing as many new adventures as possible. He now has an Iron Man (triathlon) planned for July next year after the original event was cancelled this summer. However, there is no chance of him coming out of retirement to play wheelchair tennis at Paris 2024.

“Last year I had a hip replacement, a bit like Andy Murray,” he says. “I’ve not played much at all the last few years. Maybe just two or three times, playing with my sons. I could play very passively now, but I couldn’t play matches like I used to because of the limitations in my leg. I do believe I could still have the skills, but I wouldn’t want to travel and be far away from my family.

“I enjoy my life much more today. Yes, you get the adrenaline of winning a match or a competition, but that’s why I am training for an Iron Man. That is my next sporting challenge.”