Great Britan’s Joe Salisbury and his Brazilian partner Luisa Stefani will feature in Thursday’s mixed doubles final, after they combined to defeat Marcelo Arevelo and Shuai Zhang in the semi-finals.
Salisbury and Stefani will face tough competition in Dutchman Sem Verbeek and Czech partner Katerina Siniakova, who defeated No.8 seeds Mate Pavic and Timea Babos to progress to the championship match.
Siniakova is a 10-time Grand Slam women’s doubles champion, including three times at Wimbledon, but is yet to lift a mixed doubles trophy.
From entering the draw as alternates, Rinky Hijikata and his Dutch partner David Pel have now progressed all the way to the gentlemen’s doubles semi-finals. The pair, who claim they had barely met before this year’s Championships, achieved their latest victory in straight sets over Rafael Matos and Marcelo Melo.
“We’re not putting too much pressure on ourselves,” Hijikata said. “We’re just trying to enjoy every match as much as we can and back ourselves to play some good tennis.”
They’ll next face No.1 seeds El Salvador's Arevalo and Croatian Pavic, who secured victory over Hugo Nys and Eduoard Roger-Vasselin in their deciding match tie-break.
In the ladies’ doubles, Olivia Gadecki and Desirae Krawczyk beat No.16 seeds Caroline Dolehide and Sofia Kenin in the quarters-finals.They will face Veronika Kudermetova and Elise Mertens, who upset No.2 seeds and 2024 finalists Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe in their ladies’ doubles semi-final.
Wheelchair events begin
Defending Gentlemen’s Wheelchair Singles champion Alfie Hewett got his campaign off to a strong start with a straight sets win over Daniel Caverzaschi in under an hour. The British No.2 seed is bidding for an 11th Grand Slam singles title.
Hewett: I wanted a different approach
Twenty-seven-year-old Hewett completed the career Grand Slam last year with victory at SW19 and has vowed to have more fun now that he’s won them all.
“I feel like a lot changed in myself, and I felt like that Wimbledon win was a real turning point for me, it's just about, maybe enjoying my tennis a bit more and play with a bit more freedom and let you take the pressure off results,” Hewett said this week.
“I was very obsessed with winning and losing and I wanted a different approach to my tennis, and I feel like I've done that since and I’ve still won and I’ve still lost.”
In contrast, Hewett’s doubles partner, Gordon Reid, who took to No.3 Court straight after, took nearly two-and-three-quarter hours to get past the experienced Joachim Gerard in a thrilling three set tussle.
Reid will face another tough assignment when he meets No.4 seed and five-time Grand
Slam Wheelchair Singles' Champion Gustavo Fernandez in the quarter-final on Thursday.
Gentlemen’s No.1 seed, Japanese 19-year-old Tokito Oda comes into The Championships fresh from a third consecutive victory at Roland-Garros.
He opened his campaign on Court 14 with a straightforward win over British wild card
Ben Bartram.
In an exciting example of a new generation of Wheelchair players breaking through
to the top of the sport, another teenager is blazing a trail in the Ladies’ Wheelchair
Singles draw.
“I was very obsessed with winning and losing and I wanted a different approach to my tennis, and I feel like I've done that since and I’ve still won and I’ve still lost.”
France’s Ksenia Chasteau lifted the trophy in the inaugural Roland-Garros wheelchair girls’ singles competition in 2024, and this year played in the women’s draw in Paris, where she progressed to the quarter-finals.
“The juniors are behind me now,” she told rolandgarros.com ahead of her senior debut
there. “I’m fully focused on ITF tournaments and I hope to compete in the next three
Grand Slams, as I had to miss the Australian Open because of an operation that will
allow me to walk properly with a prosthetic, because I was always a bit wonky.”
On Tuesday at Wimbledon, Chasteau engineered a shock upset of No.2 seed and Dutch
Wheelchair tennis powerhouse, Aniek Van Koot, in a 6-2, 7-6(5) victory on No.3 Court.
Chasteau now meets South African Kgothatso Montjane, who comes into The Championships as defending Ladies’ Wheelchair Doubles Champion, but is yet to take a Grand Slam singles title in 35 attempts.
Defending champion Diede De Groot, who spoke to wimbledon.com in the lead-in to The Championships about her “very needed” recent break from competition and subsequent renewed focus, took just 52 minutes to sweep past British wild card Lucy Shuker and next faces No.3 seed Xiaohui Li.
“It’s funny,” De Groot said. “I always knew how I wanted to play, but I never allowed myself to play because I was busy with winning. And now, I’m really trying to look at it like ok, I want to win again, of course, but I want to play like how I always imagined it. It doesn’t feel like it’s a change, because it’s always been there.”
Juniors progress
There were upsets in the boys’ singles tournament as Ziga Sesko stunned No.1 seed Andres Santamarta Roig to reach the third round.
Niels McDonald, the recent Roland-Garros boys’ champion, was also eliminated, exiting to Keaton Hance of the United States. Jonathan Leach, the No.4 seed, fell to Dutch opponent Thijs Boogaard.
Other seeds – including No.2 Jacopo Vasamio, No.3 Mees Rottgering and No.7 Benjamin Willwerth – all advanced to the third round.
Third round matches in the girls’ tournament will be contested at the All England Club on Wednesday.