Yui Kamiji wins gold in women’s wheelchair tennis at 2024 Paralympic Games

Yui Kamiji (Clement Bucco-Lechat, Wikimedia Commons)

The women’s wheelchair competition at the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris completed on Friday with an upset at Roland Garros. In a stunning result, the second seed Yui Kamiji of Japan defeated the number one seed Diede de Groot of the Netherlands 4-6, 6-3, 6-4.

It was one of two gold medals Kamiji won at the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris. She teamed up with Manami Tanaka to win the gold medal in women’s wheelchair doubles.

The fact that Kamiji beat de Groot was a significant surprise. de Groot has won 23 grand slam singles titles and have won the grand slam three straight years from 2021 to 2023.

In addition to beating de Groot in the final of the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris, Kamiji defeated Mariska Venter of South Africa 6-2, 6-1 in the first round, Ksenia Chasteau of France 7-6, 6-0 in the second round, Zhenzhen Zhu of China 6-1, 6-2 in the third round, and Aniek van Koot of the Netherlands 6-0, 4-6, 6-4 in the semifinals.

To put Kamiji’s win over de Groot into perspective, de Groot has won five of the last six French Opens, and the last 16 major titles. Why de Groot is not able to win the grand slam in 2024 is mightily unfortunate. That is because there is no United States Open in wheelchair tennis this year. The wheelchair competition was canceled because the US Open is happening at the same time as the Paralympic Games. This is simply a terrible decision by the United States Tennis Association, which previously canceled the wheelchair tennis event in 2008, 2012 and 2016. The bottom line is more of an effort was needed to be made to have a US Open wheelchair tennis tournament in 2024. It did not need to happen during the US Open for able bodied athletes.

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