Hewett and Reid on hunt for more RG glory

They sealed the career Grand Slam on the Paris clay in 2020, and back in the French capital four years later at the 2024 Paralympic Games, their gold medal for Great Britain made them the first men’s doubles team in wheelchair tennis history to complete the career Golden Slam.

Starting at the quarter-final stage, the first challenge of their Roland-Garros 2025 campaign came in the form of the Chile-Israel pairing of Alexander Cataldo and Sergei Lysov. On the popular Court 14, Hewett and Reid raced to a 4-0 lead and followed it up with a break to love for 5-1 before taking the first set in just 24 minutes. Cataldo and Lysov launched a comeback in the second to force a deciding tiebreak set, which the British pair comfortably secured to set up a semi-final with Japan’s Takuya Miki and Casey Ratzlaff of the USA.

As is sometimes the way in the relatively small wheelchair draws, Hewett and Reid will find themselves over the net from each other in the men’s singles on Thursday in an all-British showdown. They met at the same stage last year with Hewett going through 6-0, 6-4. Australian Open champion Hewett will have his eye on a fourth Roland-Garros singles title this year; Reid was a finalist here in 2016 and 2019.

In the women’s doubles, Paralympic singles and doubles champion Yui Kamiji is partnering South Africa’s Kgothatso Montjane. The pair lost in the final last year to the Netherlands' Diede de Groot and Aniek van Koot. Despite Kamiji’s top singles seeding this year and double Paralympic gold, the Japanese player said she still feels like she’s challenging for titles here at Roland-Garros having lost in the quarter-finals of the singles a year ago.

“Before coming to Paris, I thought because I won the singles and doubles gold medal, I was happy to come back. But when I saw last year's results, I lost in the first round here and I didn't win a doubles as well, so I did nothing last year. So I'm a wonderful challenger, that's what I'm thinking now.”

“I think I'm the smallest person in the women's wheelchair, so I can't use power and strength,” she added. “I have to be smart all the time and I need to see the full court, how my opponent is getting in or out of the court and how that can work for me.”

Kamiji and Montjane won their opening doubles matchup 6-0, 6-3 against De Groot and new partner 19-year-old Ksenia Chasteau.

Elsewhere in the doubles, men's No.2 seeds Martin de la Puente and Ruben Spaargaren suffered an upset to Spain’s Daniel Caverzaschi and Gustavo Fernandez, who will now face experienced Frenchman Stephane Houdet and Japanese three-time RG singles champion Tokito Oda.

Wednesday was also the start of the quad wheelchair singles, with the draw of eight commencing at the quarter-final stage. The top two seeds, the Netherlands’ Niels Vink and Sam Schroder, eased through their first matches and face Great Britain’s Andy Lapthorne and Guy Sasson of Israel in the semi-finals respectively. 

Vink and Schroder teamed up last year to win the doubles championship here in Paris, but have changed partners for 2025: Vink is playing this year with Sasson, and Schroder is partnering Lapthorne. Sasson and Lapthorne were runners up to the Dutch pair last year in the doubles.