De Groot’s ‘muy especial’ title. Fernandez, Vink also win in Barcelona
Diede de Groot completed a ‘very special’ return to the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour with an assured set of victories over three fellow top 10 players as she joined Gustavo Fernandez and Niels Vink on the roll of honour at the 2025 Tram Barcelona Open.
Sure, it was not the first time that De Groot has lifted a trophy in 2025. She helped the Netherlands win a 34th women’s title at the BNP Paribas World Team Cup at the beginning of this month.
But, such was the Dutch team’s draw and De Groot’s current world No. 3 ranking after eight months away from competitive wheelchair tennis, that she was not pitched against any top 10 opponents in Turkiye.
That all changed in Barcelona as world No. 9 Lizzy de Greef and world No. 8 Zhu Zhenzhen provided progressively more difficult challenges for De Groot in the quarter and semi-finals, but the biggest test was to come against world No. 5 Li Xiaohui.
For the sake of context, Li was the same player that had brought De Groot’s 145-match winning streak to an end in the final of the 2024 BNP Paribas World Team Cup a little over 12 months ago. And, to test De Groot’s mental fortitude still more after time away wheelchair tennis for hip surgery, second seed Li took the first set of their Barcelona final convincingly… 6-1.
However, De Groot was more than equal to the challenge, eventually securing a 1-6 6-4 6-3 victory to clinch her first singles title since Wimbledon 2024 – a victory that produced beaming smiles and fist pumps from De Groot, as well it might, as she became a three-time champion in Barcelona. Few non-Spanish speakers would have needed the translation when De Groot later said 'this feels muy especial' on her Instagram account.
View this post on Instagram
For Li, there was some consolation in having already won the women’s doubles title – and what a hard-fought victory that was. Opponents in the bronze medal match at the Paris Paralympics, Li and Guo Luoyao made a victorious tournament debut as doubles partners, defeating top seeds Manami Tanaka and Zhu 6-7(4) 6-4 (12-10).
Fernandez completes Barcelona Open four-timer
That Martin de la Puente and Gustavo Fernandez should end up in the men’s singles final in Barcelona was of little surprise – the top two seeds had contested the last two finals at the ITF 1 Series tournament, De la Puente having got the better of his Argentinian opponent for only the second time in the 2023 final.
De la Puente’s route to the 2025 final was efficient, to say the least, after the loss of just one game to both Ho Won Im and Gordon Reid.
Fernandez, meanwhile, had made equally relentless progress, securing all three of his earlier matches in straight sets and arriving at the final having already beaten two Spanish opponents.
De la Puente’s hopes of repeating his 2023 victory over Fernandez started to fade as world No. 4 Fernandez came from 3-4 down and dropped just three points in the last three games of the opening set. A similar three-game winning sequence earned the top seed the upper hand at 5-3 in the second set and the reigning champion completed a 6-4 6-4 victory for his fourth Barcelona Open title in five years.
Like Li in the women’s singles, De la Puente came into his singles final having already won the men’s doubles title. With top seeds Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid having withdrawn before the semi-finals, De le Puente and Ruben Spaargaren beat Im and Gaetan Menguy 6-1, 6-1 for their fourth ITF 1 Series doubles title of the season.
View this post on Instagram
Vink third Barcelona Open quad singles title since 2022
Niels Vink’s love for Barcelona is well-established – both as a football fan and as a visitor. In recent years the 22-year-oild Dutchman has increasingly used the city for training camps.
Now an ambassador for the Johan Cruyff Foundation, the Tram Barcelona Open’s organisational partner, Vink has even more reason to feel at home and to want to impress in Spain’s second largest city. And impress he did after winning his third quad singles title since 2022.
Vink’s semi-final against Brazil’s Leandro Pena brought a rematch of their meeting in the quad final at the BNP Paribas World Team Cup – although this time it was a match that finished prematurely as Pena retired after dropping the opening set 6-0.
In the other half of the draw second seed Guy Sasson, the champion in 2023 after defeating Pena in the final, ended hopes of an Argentinian title double after defeating Gonzalo Enrique Lazarte 6-1 6-2.
Ever since their round-robin group meeting at the NEC Wheelchair Singles Masters last November, each head-to-head between Sasson and Vink had included a tie-break and had ended in a straight sets win for Vink. Their latest match-up was to be no different, Vink holding on for a 6-3 7-6(4) victory and his fourth singles title of 2025 – also his first ITF 1 Series and his first title on clay this season.
Vink also left Barcelona this year as the only winner of both singles and doubles title, he and Sasson earning two straight sets wins against Pena and Donald Ramphadi and Lazarte and Ymanitu Silva.
View this post on Instagram