De Groot admits to Paralympic nerves despite 162 wins from 164 matches
Even when you have won 162 of your last 164 singles matches and not lost at Roland Garros since 2020 – winning 15 Grand Slams in between – nerves can still creep in.
That was the revelation of Diede de Groot, who began her quest to become just the second player – following her idol Esther Vergeer – to retain the Paralympic gold medal in women’s singles on Court Suzanne Lenglen today.
The top seed dispatched Germany’s Katharina Kruger 6-1 6-0 in just 48 minutes to reach round two of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Wheelchair Tennis Event where she will face either Israel’s Maayan Zikri or Najwa Awane of Morocco.
De Groot has 23 Grand Slam singles titles to her name and heads the all-time list for most Grand Slam wheelchair women’s singles titles won. In short, she is a phenomenal player, yet one still susceptible to tension it seems.
“I was a little bit nervous in the first few games,” said Dutchwoman De Groot, who was born with unequal leg length and began her wheelchair tennis career at the age of seven.
“I could literally feel my racket shaking in my hand, so I had to calm myself down a little bit. I managed to get into it and to feel the flow and to play my own game.
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“I’ve been a defending champion many times but not at the Paralympics – and it is definitely different. Rio was my first Games and then Tokyo, which had no fans, and now Paris where everyone is here.
“You can tell already that so many people are coming out to watch wheelchair tennis. It is very special and there is such a special atmosphere of us, but I do feel the pressure.
“I feel like all eyes are on me, which is something I am sort of used to, but now there are so many more eyes. I need to deal with this and I need to just focus on my game.”
There are a whole host of statistics linked with De Groot’s potential Paris 2024 success. For starters, the 27-year-old is bidding to become the second player in history to compete the double career Golden Slam after Dylan Alcott.
Watch this space. Nerves or otherwise, there is every chance De Groot will be in the mix when the battle to reach the Paralympic podium hots up.