SA’s Montjane becomes first African woman to win ITF Masters title

JOHANNESBURG - South Africa's Kgothatso Montjane became the first African woman to win a title at the year-end championships, the NEC Wheelchair Singles Masters and ITF Wheelchair Doubles Masters.

The wheelchair tennis ace and her Japanese partner, Yui Kamiji, beat Dutch top seeds Diede de Groot and Jiske Griffioen 6-2, 6-1 in the women’s final at this year’s Doubles Masters on Saturday.

"It’s great that from the first time we played together (in May 2022) we won the first of many titles. It’s great to have made this combination work. It wasn’t easy for us to decide to do it, but we are producing the results that we always wished for. We play better on clay because the surface is not so fast, but today we approached the match with the mentality we’d adopted going into the US Open final. We didn’t get the chance to play that final, but we brought that same attitude," said Montane in an interview with ITF.

The ITF Wheelchair Doubles Masters is the ITF's flagship wheelchair tennis doubles event. First staged in 2000, the season-ending event features the world's top eight men's doubles partnerships, top six women's doubles partnerships and top four quad doubles partnerships.

Montjane and Kamiji have beaten De Groot and Griffioen twice and have won nine titles together this season, including Roland Garros and US Open champions.

In the men’s competition, defending champions Martin de la Puente and Gustavo Fernandez went down 3-6, 6-2 (10-6) to Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid while Sam Schroder and Niels Vink also claimed their third quad-doubles title after easing to a 6-1, 6-1 victory over Heath Davidson and Robert Shaw.