Vink and Schroder make safe progress into last four at Roland Garros
The dominant Dutch duo of Niels Vink and Sam Schroder both recorded straight sets victories on the opening day of action in the Roland Garros quad wheelchair singles event – with the pair remaining on course to meet in a fifth consecutive Grand Slam final.
Vink defeated Canada’s Robert Shaw 6-1 6-1, while Schroder was held up a little longer in a 6-2 7-6(6) victory against Donald Ramphadi, of South Africa. Those results mean that Vink advances to a semi-final clash against Japan’s Koji Sugeno, who defeated Heath Davidson 6-2 7-5, while Schroder will play the American veteran David Wagner, who recovered from a set down to defeat Andy Lapthorne 3-6 6-3 6-2.
Despite the apparent ease with which Vink won on Wednesday, the world No. 1 highlighted plenty of areas for improvement ahead of the clash with Sugeno.
“My strokes were really good and my game plan was good, but I struggled in every service game, a lot of double faults and a lot of second serves,” he analysed afterwards. “I'm happy with this win, but yeah, I'm gonna try to improve myself for the next match.”
Schroder was pushed hard by Ramphadi, who managed to prolong the contest into a second set tiebreak after saving two match points in the tenth game of the set.
“Overall it was a good match. Donald is a very strong player so to play him in the first round was a tough draw,” Schroder said. “But I started out really well and then second set, I made it a little bit more difficult for myself than I should have done. It was close until the end, but I finished off with a really good winner.”
The results for Vink and Schroder move them one round closer to meeting in the final in Paris for the second time – it was here last year that began their streak of reaching all four Grand Slam finals. Vink defeated Schroder in the final here in 2022 to claim his first major singles title, and the 20-year-old was relishing the chance to compete for the title in Paris again.
“It's really nice. My favourite surface is clay and last year, I won my first Grand Slam here at Roland Garros,” he said. “So yeah, it's really special to be back.”
Vink also beat Schroder to win the US Open title – but Schroder recorded strong victories against his friend and doubles partner in the finals at both Wimbledon last year and the Australian Open in January this year, and he was optimistic that he could take the fight to Vink should they meet again in the final this year.
“Last year it was a close final. Should have been three sets. And I feel like I've been just getting better and better throughout the whole year,” he said. “We'll see where we're at this week but hopefully we can make it to the final of course. They are always going to be tough matches [against Vink] so I know I have to be at my best.”
A win in Paris would also see Schroder enter the record books alongside three undisputed greats of wheelchair tennis – he would become the fourth wheelchair tennis player to complete the Grand Slam, alongside Shingo Kunieda, Diede de Groot and Dylan Alcott.
“I think that's that's the biggest goal that I have right now,” he said when asked about the prospect of adding his name to that list. “The first one this year was winning singles and doubles in Australia. But then the second goal is to win here.”
Should Vink and Schroder both get through their semi-final matches, there will be much on the line when they face off in the final on Saturday.
Elsewhere in the Roland Garros wheelchair event, the top four seeds in the women’s singles draw advanced to the semi-finals after quarter-final victories on Wednesday.
Diede de Groot extended her Tour-level winning streak to 101 matches by defeating France’s Pauline Deroulede. De Groot will now play No. 4 seed Momoko Ohtani, who eased to a win against Kgothatso Montjane on Wednesday. Ohtani is the last player to defeat De Groot at Roland Garros, having a recorded an upset victory against the world No. 1 in the first round in 2020. The other semi-final will see Yui Kamiji take on Jiske Griffoen – a match-up Roland Garros champions – after they triumphed against Katharina Kruger and Dana Mathewson, respectively.
In the men’s draw, world No. 1 Alfie Hewett and three-time Roland Garros champion blitzed past doubles partner Gordon Reid to set up a semi-final meeting with No. 3 seed and two-time Roland Garros winner Gustavo Fernandez, who defeated Takuya Miki. Meanwhile, second seed Tokito Oda survived a three-set battle with Ruben Spaargaren, but fourth seed Joachim Gerard was upset in three sets by Martin de la Puete – neither Oda nor De la Puente have either reached a Grand Slam final before and one of them is now due to break through this week.