After bagging Wimbledon doubles title, Montjane eyes elusive singles Grand Slam win
South African tennis star Kgothatso Montjane returned to the country on Monday morning after her successful outing at Wimbledon where she and her partner, Yui Kamiji, won their third Grand Slam title together.
Wheelchair tennis player Kgothatso Montjane arrived to a hero's welcome at the OR Tambo International Airport on 15 July 2024 after winning the Wimbledon Women’s Wheelchair doubles final with her partner, Yui Kamiji. Picture: Katlego Jiyane/EWN
JOHANNESBURG - South African tennis star Kgothatso Montjane returned to the country on Monday morning after her successful outing at Wimbledon where she and her partner, Yui Kamiji, won their third Grand Slam title together.
Montjane and Kamiji beat Diede De Groot and Jiske Griffioen 6-4 and 6-4 in the women's wheelchair doubles final on a day that was made more special by the presence of tennis icon, Billie Jean King, who chose to watch their final instead of the men's final between Carlos Alcaraz and Novak Djokovic.
Montjane received a warm but muted welcome home and credited her success as down to a team effort and the support that the people around her give to her. She said that gave her added determination to win an elusive singles title.
"Playing at this level, my team is the one that motivates me. I have so many lows and they are the ones that are trying so hard to keep me motivated so that I keep my head down and keep working hard. Hence, I say I keep winning the wrong Slam but it’s still a great achievement. The plan now is to win a singles Slam," Montjane said.
Montjane said she feels as though her coveted maiden Grand Slam singles title is closer than it has ever been. At the moment, the women’s wheelchair singles event is dominated by De Groot, who’s on a run of 15 consecutive Grand Slam title wins and Montjane is confident that she can break that streak.
"I just have to keep my head down and work hard. I’m close, the numbers are showing how close I am, so I just need to keep working hard and keeping the belief and it should come," she said.
Montjane and her partner won £28,000 (approximately R650,000) in prize money, which is a long way from the £2.7 million prize that the men's and women's singles champions receive. She said there was added pressure on her to perform at Grand Slams because of the costly nature of playing on the circuit.
"We don’t make money in our ITF tournaments. We spend more money than we make at all the ITF tournaments that we play. We get to make money at the Grand Slams and it’s so important to really do well there so we can replace the money that we lose. There are massive costs involved there," said Montjane.
Competing on the wheelchair tennis circuit is an expensive venture and with the costs of flights, accommodation, tournament fees being so high, a professional cannot make it without the help of sponsors. Montjane has quite a number of high-profile backers in her corner and she said that was helping her to keep the SA flag flying in the sport.