Young guns pushing each other to greater heights at Tokyo 2020

Niels Vink could barely contain himself. “It’s amazing,” he said with a fresh-faced, wide-eyed grin at the notion of having secured at least a silver medal at his first Paralympics. The Dutch 18-year-old is the youngest of the 104 wheelchair tennis players to make it to Tokyo 2020, and at 21 fellow debutant Sam Schroder is hardly a veteran.

En route to the quad doubles gold medal match they have beaten three-time Paralympic champion David Wagner and his American partner Bryan Barten, and Great Britain’s Andy Lapthorne, the three-time Paralympic medallist partnered by Antony Cotterill. Now the duo are playing for gold against the reigning champions, Dylan Alcott and Heath Davidson – and they have every reason to feel confident about their chances.

“We’ve played them a few times, and I think we are 2-2 right now,” said Schroder, before Vink pointed out that they won the quartet’s most recent meeting at the French Riviera Open in June. “If we play the way we did today I think we’ll get a good result,” Schroder added.

A total of 16 of the 104 wheelchair tennis players at Tokyo 2020 are aged 23 or under, and they are here to play. RPC's Viktoriia Lvova, 22, and 23-year-old Wang Ziying ensured two of the five youngsters progressed to the second round of the women's singles draw, while in the men’s singles draw, eight of the nine players aged 23 and under, a cohort that includes Rio 2016 silver-medallist Alfie Hewett, posted opening wins. Four – Spain’s Martin De La Puente, Belgium’s Jef Vandorpe, Ruben Spaargaren of the Netherlands and Ji Zhenxu of China – booked their spot in the last 16 on Sunday.

Ji, the 21-year-old world No. 47, served notice of his burgeoning talent with an uncompromising 6-0 6-1 opening win over Martin Legner, 38 years his senior. “When I started wheelchair tennis it was a different game, not so fast,” remarked Legner the only player in history to feature at every Paralympic wheelchair tennis event since 1992.

And Ji hasn’t stopped there. On Sunday he dispatched No. 14 seed Maikel Scheffers 6-4 6-4, the Dutchman the first seed to fall in the draw.

For No. 15 seed Vandorpe, who turned 20 last month, the emergence of an upcoming generation of players ready to take on the world’s best has already lifted the quality of the sport to new heights.

“As the years go by, there are more and more players on an international level, and the level of tennis is also increasing year by year,” said the Belgian. “That’s something that everybody sees very clearly and is widely agreed. There’s a large consensus about that.

“So, in a way, it makes it more difficult today to reach the Paralympics than it was 20 or 30 years ago, which is a very good thing: it means the sport has developed and is still developing.

“The thing I like most about wheelchair tennis is that it’s a very dynamic sport,” Vandorpe added. “The court, the net, it’s all the same as for the able-bodied players. That’s a big court, and you need to do a lot of pushing to get around.”

Vandorpe and 22-year-old Ruben Spaargaren announced themselves on the wheelchair tennis scene back in 2018, when they turned the heads of the likes of wheelchair tennis legend Esther Vergeer when, as teenagers, they stunned Gordon Reid and Gustavo Fernandez at the UNIQLO Wheelchair Doubles Masters.

Since then, both have risen through the ranks and are ranked No. 16 and No. 17 in the world respectively to nab a seeding on their Paralympic debuts.

“For Jef and I, it’s our first time,” Spaargaren said.” We practised together this week and we’re feeling great, we’re ready to play some great matches and see what happens.”

For Spaargaren, a rangy Dutchman with a huge wingspan, wheelchair tennis offered him a sport where he was in control of his destiny.

“It sounds simple, putting the ball between the lines and over the net, but there’s so much going on on the court,” he explains. “That’s what attracts me to it – having to work hard and improve yourself.”

The Netherlands has a rich history of wheelchair tennis talent, particularly on the women’s side – indeed, all 14 Paralympic women’s wheelchair tennis gold medals in singles and doubles have been won by the Dutch. But now there is growing depth in the men’s and quads ranks too, something Spaargaren accredits to the ongoing success of their women.

“Thanks to them I think the men and the quads are coming,” he said. “Tom [Egberink] is No. 8 now, he’s close to the Grand Slams, and it’s very good to have at least one Dutchman in there.

“We have Sam [Schroder] and Niels [Vink], who are playing well together in doubles as well as singles. And we have Maikel [Scheffers], the old guy, who still plays really good. And then there’s me. I think we’re doing a great job. We practice a few days a week together, the men and the women. We learn a lot from the women as well.”

As Spaargaren speaks in the media mixed zone at Ariake Tennis Park, Spaniard De La Puente jokingly shouts ‘stop telling lies!’ with a laugh and a smile. The No. 11 seed eased past Piotr Jaroszewski of Poland 6-1 6-1 to reach the third round before partnering compatriot Daniel Caverzaschi to doubles victory over young Americans Casey Ratzlaff and Conner Stroud, 6-1 6-2.

“It was a tough day, singles and doubles, but I’m happy,” said De La Puente, who made his Paralympic debut five years earlier at Rio 2016, aged just 17. “I think hard work does everything. Jef and Ruben are working a lot to be here as well, and these stages are here for the pro athletes, and that’s what we’re trying to be.”

De La Puente could not have a better mentor for reaching the top of the game than Argentina’s Gustavo Fernandez, the former world No. 1 and fourth seed in Tokyo who often trains with the 22-year-old at his home base in Spain.

“He was one of my idols since I was starting,” De La Puente said. “He was a superman for me, he was a beast, and I tried to be like him. I got lucky and share a coach with him many times at the moment, and he also tries to teach me some things on tour, shows me how to play some tennis, and I’m really grateful for sharing moments with him as well.

“We’re trying to get to the top of the rankings – it’s very tough, because the top guys are amazing, they’re professional athletes. We’re trying to be like them, trying to climb this long staircase that is the tennis rankings in our career.”

To be like them, they must beat them – and there’s no time like the present. De La Puente faces French former world No. 1 Stephane Houdet, the 50-year-old No. 6 seed, for a place in the quarter-finals; Ji faces 37-year-old top seed Shingo Kunieda; Vandorpe takes on Fernandez, the No. 4 seed and a spritely 27 years old; and Spaargaren is up against the No. 2 seed, 23-year-old Hewett, who recognises the impact of the ever-increasing depth and quality of competition coming through in wheelchair tennis, even in his few years at the top of the sport.

“Over the last 10 years of being in the game, and hearing from the more experienced players how far it’s come in terms of publicity, that’s where it’s come from,” Hewett said. “When I was a kid and first went in a chair, I didn’t even know wheelchair tennis existed.

“The bigger the events get, the more media coverage that is happening in the sport, the more players want to pick up a racket, want to get in a chair and want to try out the sport – hopefully at a younger age.”

The evergreen Kunieda believes the same is true for the players as well as the fans: as a competitor, he relishes the chance to test himself against a new generation of challengers.

“Younger players are coming up and it’s very good for our sport,” said the world No. 1 and three-time Paralympic champion. “It is very fun to play against them. As they grow up, I have to grow up as well!”

One youngster not at Tokyo 2020 is Kunieda’s 15-year-old compatriot Tokito Oda, already ranked No. 13 in the world and a name to watch when the Paralympics return in 2024.

“We hit two weeks ago, and he’s already very good, very impressive at 15 years old,” Kunieda said. “He has a big, big future ahead, I think.”

If the emerging prospects proving their worth in Tokyo are anything to go by, so does the sport.