Li makes history at Melbourne Open. Oda, Vink add Super Series titles
Li Xiaohui made history on the last day of the 2025 Stockland Melbourne Wheelchair Open, becoming the first Chinese players to win a Super Series women’s singles title on the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour, as Tokito Oda and Niels Vink both added to their respective collections of Super Series crowns.
Rewind 12 months and Li and Yui Kamiji both lost to world No.1 Diede de Groot at Hume Tennis Centre – Li in three sets in her opening match of 2024 and Kamiji memorably missing out on ending De Groot’s winning streak despite having been a set and 5-2 up in the third and deciding set of the final.
Later in the season both Li and Kamiji would go on and inflict De Groot’s only losses of 2024, but with De Groot currently taking planned time out from the Tour after surgery it was the Chinese and Japanese players who went head-to-head in the first Super Series final of the season, with unseeded world No.14 Li beating Kamiji 7-6(0) 6-3.
Li’s first victory over the top seed, world No.2 and Paris Paralympic gold medallist in four career matches – the first three of which ended in closely fought contests during 2024 – came in an hour and 34 minutes and it is certainly a timely performance heading into the Australian Open, adding an extra layer of intrigue ahead of the first Grand Slam of the year.
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There might have been an all-Chinese victory in the women’s doubles, too, had it not been for Dutch top seeds Jiske Griffioen and Aniek van Koot halting the progress of Li and Wang Ziying 7-6(5), 6-4 in the semi-finals.
In the event Griffioen and Van Koot went on to defeat second seeds Kamiji and Lucy Shuker 6-2 7-5 in this year’s final, thereby winning their 17th Super Series doubles title together.
Oda retains Melbourne Open crown for sixth Super Series title
Going into his second successive Melbourne Open men’s singles final against Alfie Hewett leading their career head-to-head 9-8, world No.1 Oda achieved something he had never done before in any of their previous 17 meetings as he took the first set 6-0 in a highly impressive start to the contest.
There was more than a little resemblance to their Paris 2024 men’s singles gold medal match, during which Hewett needed to call the trainer for a groin strain early in the final, with the world No.2 this time receiving treatment on a hip between the first two sets.
However, as in Paris in September, Hewett rallied towards the end of the second set as Oda’s error count started to increase in ever-changing blustery conditions and the Briton took the lead for the first time at 5-4 before forcing the deciding set having won five games in a row.
Having come from behind in the second set, Hewett was unable to fully recover from falling two games behind for a second time at 5-3 in the deciding set and Oda continued to reassert his authority, forcing Hewett into a final error that put the seal on a 6-0 4-6 6-4 victory as the match time approached two hours and 30 minutes.
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While Oda made it back-to-back Melbourne Open titles in the men’s singles, Hewett and Gordon Reid did exactly the same in the men’s doubles – with Oda again on the other side of the net in the final.
The British top seeds eased into the final for the loss of just one game, with Oda and Tom Egberink beating second seeds Joachim Gerard and Takuya Miki 6-2 6-2 in the semi-finals for their third successive straight sets win. But that’s where the Belgian-Japanese progress came to an end as Hewett and Reid cemented a winning start to 2025 7-5 7-5.
Vink completes Melbourne Open four-timer and adds quad doubles title
Niels Vink’s trials during a tough start to 2024 were a thing of the past as the world No. 2 and world No. 3 Guy Sasson dominated the quad singles and doubles at this year’s Melbourne Open.
Forced to retire due to injury during last year’s quad singles final against fellow Dutchman Sam Schroder, Vink continues to eat away at world No.1 Schroder’s current advantage at the top of the world rankings after defeating Sasson 7-6(9) 6-2 in this year’s final to seal his fourth Melbourne Open title since 2021.
Three comfortable straight sets wins saw Vink safely through to this year’s final, while Paris 2024 quad singles bronze medallist Sasson was involved in a thrilling semi-final against Schroder that went to a deciding set tie-break.
The only previous meeting between Sasson and Schroder on Australia’s hard courts ended in a straight sets win for Schroder in the 2024 Australian Open final, but this time it was Sasson’s turn to prevail in the fourth three-set contest between them in their last five head-to-heads, the Israeli edging into the 2025 Melbourne Open final 6-4 2-6 7-6(5).
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Having neared the end of 2024 with a 7-6(3) 6-2 win over Sasson in the group stages of the NEC Wheelchair Singles Masters, Vink now goes to Melbourne Park with a similar win over last year’s Australian Open runner-up after taking the 2025 Melbourne Open title 7-6(9) 6-2.
A departure from Schroder and Vink’s usual arrangement of pairing up at major tournaments made way for Sasson and Vink to form a new partnership, a development that brought instant reward. Whereas Schroder and Andy Lapthorne went out of the quad doubles in the semi-finals, 7-6(4) 6-1 against third seeds Heath Davidson and Robert Shaw, Sasson and Vink duly lived up to their top seeding, beating Davidson and Shaw 7-5 6-0 in the final as Vink added to the three previous Melbourne Open doubles titles he’s won alongside Schroder.