Preview: 2025 Australian Open Wheelchair Championships
Wheelchair tennis breaks new ground at the Australian Open Wheelchair Championships in 2025, with 54 players on site at Melbourne Park for the men’s, women’s and quad singles events, as qualifying draws are introduced for the first time.
Two of the four players contesting each of Monday’s qualifying draws will go forward to complete the 16-player main draws scheduled to begin on Tuesday, giving seven of the 12 players entered for qualifying their debut experience of competing at a Grand Slam tournament.
While Spain’s Martin de la Puente and Daniel Caverzaschi are both drawn to face qualifiers in the top half of the men’s singles main draw on Tuesday, the bottom half of the men ‘s main draw has produced some intriguing match-ups, with Gordon Reid and Joachim Gerard, the 2016 and 2021 Australian Open champions respectively, set to go head-to-head for a place in the quarter-finals.
Also among the most eye-catching main draw match-ups, 2023 champion Alfie Hewett will play six-time finalist Stephane Houdet, with defending champion and world No.1 Tokito Oda starting his 2025 campaign against Australian wild card Anderson Parker on the back of beginning his season with victory at the Melbourne Open Super Series.
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Women’s Draw
While all four players contesting Monday’s women’s qualifying draws are making their debuts at one of the sport’s four majors, elsewhere the main draw has thrown up the possibility of a semi-final between top seed Yui Kamiji and Li Xiaohui, who beat world No. 2 Kamiji to become the first Chinese player to a win women’s singles Super Series title at the recent Melbourne Open.
With six-time and reigning Australian Open champion Diede de Groot having not yet returned to competition after planned surgery shortly after the Paris 2024 Paralympics, Paris gold medallist Kamiji begins her bid for a third singles title at Melbourne Park with a first round match against her fellow Japanese Shiori Funamizu as the latter makes her third successive appearance at Melbourne Park and goes in search of her first singles win in six Grand Slam appearances.
Ten years on from the first of her two Australian Open singles titles to date, world No. 4
Jiske Griffioen will play one of the two women’s singles qualifies, while 2013 champion Aniek van Koot will face Chinese world No. 8 Zhu Zhenzhen.
Zhu beat Li in the first round on the latter’s Grand Slam debut at the 2024 Australian Open, but with Paris 2024 semi-finalist Wang Ziying set to face a qualifier in her first ever Australian Open match this time there is the prospect of three Chinese players reaching the quarter-finals.
Quad Draw
World No.1 Sam Schroder bids to become the first player since Dylan Alcott to win four successive Australian Open quad singles titles this year, with the Dutch top seed opening his 2025 account at Melbourne Park against Brazil’s world No. Ymanitu Silva.
Schroder’s countryman Niels Vink is also looking to complete his own piece of history, with the Australian Open being the only title that world No.2 Vink needs to complete his career Grand Slam. Vink will face Canadian Robert Shaw in his opening match this time as he bids to follow up his Melbourne Open Super Series title.
Returning to his equal-best career singles ranking at No. 8 in the latest UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Rankings, Chile’s Francisco Cayulef will face one of two qualifiers as he attempts to reach the Australian Open quarter-finals for the second successive year, with former Australian Open finalist Andy Lapthorne also playing a qualifier.
A year on from reaching his first Grand Slam quad singles final on his Australian Open debut, Paris 2024 bronze medallist and world No. 3 Guy Sasson face Chile’s Diego Perez in his opening match this year. Home fans will be hoping for an early brace of Australian wins, with Heath Davidson facing wild card entry and his compatriot Jin Woodman, while Finn Broadbent opens his second Australian Open campaign with a tough assignment against world No. 4 Ahmet Kaplan.
All Australian Open Wheelchair Championships qualifying draws and main draws can be found here.