Who’s who on the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour?
The BNP Paribas World Team Cup should have been taking place this week in Vilamoura, Portugal but, as with all professional tennis, it has been cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We profile five stars on the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour from five different continents – all of whom should have been competing at the World Team Cup this week.
Shingo Kunieda (JPN)
One of the most-decorated athletes in the sport, Kunieda holds just about every record going in men’s wheelchair tennis. Success at the Australian Open earlier this year saw him win his 44th Grand Slam title – in singles and doubles – equalling Esther Vergeer’s all-time record for most total Grand Slam wheelchair titles. His victory over Gordon Reid in the men’s singles final in Melbourne was his 10th Australian Open singles title, and his 23rd Grand Slam singles title in total.
For Kunieda, the triumph at the Australian Open also ended a near-two year barren spell at the majors – he had previously not won a Grand Slam singles title since 2018 Roland Garros. It was the perfect start to what should have been a huge year in the Japanese player’s career – he is a big star in his home country and one of the faces of the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games. He will go for a 3rd Paralympic gold medal in singles, having won the titles at both Beijing 2008 and London 2012, when the Games go ahead next year.
He has competed in a total of 11 World Team Cup events for Japan, winning 54 of the 66 matches he has contested at the event and being part of title-winning teams in 2003, 2007 and 2018.
Gustavo Fernandez (ARG)
Already, at the age of 26, the greatest wheelchair tennis player to hail from South America, Fernandez was one Grand Slam title away from creating history in 2019. The Argentine won the first three major singles titles of the year, defeating Stefan Olsson at the Australian Open, Gordon Reid at Roland Garros and Kunieda at Wimbledon. But his quest to become the first wheelchair tennis player to complete the calendar-year Grand Slam (since Wimbledon introduced a wheelchair singles event in 2016) was thwarted by French veteran Stephane Houdet in the semifinals at the US Open.
That defeat should not take the shine off a remarkable few years for Fernandez, who first broke through at Grand Slam-level when he won the singles title in Paris in 2016. He has won a total of five Grand Slam singles titles, and 52 singles titles in total, and spent much of 2019 as world No. 1, ahead of Kunieda. Although yet to win a medal at the Paralympic Games – he competed at both London 2012 and Rio 2016 – he is expected to be one of the leading medal contenders at the delayed Tokyo Games next year.
He has competed in a total of 11 World Team Cup events for Argentina, plus an appearance at the junior event in 2007. He has a 48-28 win-loss record at the competition and led Argentina to the semifinals for the first time in 2019.
Find out more about Gustavo Fernandez's story on the ITF YouTube channel.
Diede de Groot (NED)
The latest in a long line of outstanding wheelchair tennis players from the Netherlands, 23-year-old De Groot reached the world No. 1 ranking for the first time in March 2018 and has remained at the summit of the women’s game pretty much ever since then. After making her major breakthrough at 2017 Wimbledon, just one year later De Groot would go on a blistering run of form that saw her hold all four Grand Slam singles titles simultaneously – winning four major crowns in a row from 2018 Wimbledon through to 2019 Roland Garros, defeating compatriot Aniek van Koot at Wimbledon and Japan’s Yui Kamiji in the next three Grand Slam finals.
Van Koot would end her World Team Cup teammate’s Grand Slam streak in the final at Wimbledon last year, but De Groot bounced back to claim another title – her seventh major title in total – at the US Open just two months later, again defeating Kamiji in the final. As top seed at the Australian Open this year, she was upset by China’s Zhu Zhenzhen in one of the matches of the tournament. De Groot won a silver medal in women’s doubles at the Rio 2016 Paralympics, and Tokyo 2020 would have been a big chance for her to go for a first gold medal at the event. An extra year of preparation should not hurt her chances at all.
One of many superb players that the Netherlands has to choose from, De Groot made her World Team Cup debut at senior-level in 2015, and has been part of four title-winning teams since then and has a 22-4 win-loss record in the competition.
Kgothatso Montjane (RSA)
Arguably the best African wheelchair tennis player in the history of the game, former table tennis player Montjane has made huge strides in recent years and is now firmly established as one of the sport’s elite competitors. Having first competed at Grand Slam-level in 2013, she has now appeared at 10 consecutive Grand Slam events and has reached the semifinals at a major on five occasions.
Having set herself a goal of winning a medal at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games (“honestly, I don’t care what colour,” she said in an interview last year), Montjane has good reason to be positive. The last time she sported her country’s colours, she guided the South Africa women's team to a first semifinal appearance at the World Team Cup last year – it took the might of the Dutch team to stop Montjane and co from reaching the title match.
The 33-year-old only began playing tennis at the age of 19 and Montjane has 23 titles to her name on the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour. She made an excellent start to the 2020 season with a semifinal finish at the Australian Open, where she fell to eventual champion Kamiji.
The short film 'Kgothatso Montjane: My Story' is available to watch on the ITF YouTube channel.
Dylan Alcott (AUS)
It speaks volumes of the current stature of wheelchair tennis that the name Dylan Alcott resonates far beyond just the fans of the sport. A household name in his native Australia, it is fair to say that Alcott’s journey from Paralympic gold medallist in wheelchair basketball to become the No. 1 player in quad wheelchair tennis has won him legions of fans in both his homeland and across the world.
Nowhere has Alcott been more dominant that at his home Grand Slam. Since making his debut at the Australian Open in 2014, he has lost just three singles matches at the event – and he has won six consecutive quad singles titles, including victory this year when he defeated Great Britain’s Andy Lapthorne on Rod Laver Arena. He has won 10 Grand Slam singles titles in total – and, like Fernandez, came close to securing a first calendar-year Grand Slam in 2019, when defeat to Lapthorne in the final at the US Open saw a winning streak that had taken in titles at both Roland Garros and Wimbledon come to an end.
A two-time World Team Cup champion with Australia, winning the quad title in both 2016 and 2018, Alcott will aim for further success when he dons the green and gold again at the Paralympics in Tokyo next year. In addition to his gold in wheelchair basketball at the age of 17 at Beijing 2008, he won gold in both quad singles and doubles at Rio 2016.
On 1 April this year, he announced that he would attempt to compete in wheelchair rugby at the Tokyo Games – a surprise declaration which (the date should have been a clue) turned out to be an April fool. Alcott’s sporting prowess is such that the joke did not appear that unrealistic.
Watch Dylan Alcott speak about his journey to become world No. 1 on the ITF YouTube channel.
Visit the ITF YouTube channel to watch more stories from the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour.