While France sent top seeds Japan crashing out of the men’s title hunt at the end of Thursday’s fourth day of play at the 2023 BNP Paribas World Team Cup, for 16-year-old Benjamin Wenzel and his two teammates in the Australian junior team it was the end of a day off from competition at Vilamoura Tennis and Padel Academy.

Now 16, Wenzel was the youngest member of another three-player Australian team that lifted the World Team Cup junior title last year, winning both of his doubles matches in the round-robin pool phase of the competition. A semi-finalist in the boys’ singles at this year’s Cruyff Foundation Junior Masters, this year’s World Team Cup has included one singles win and one loss so far for Wenzel, while a 3-0 win over Brazil has seen Australia through to Friday’s semi-finals once again.   

“The Junior Masters and World Team Cup have been really important,” said Wenzel as he looked back on his journey, which so far has primarily involved a string of UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour events throughout Australia. “Living in Australia far, far away from a lot of other juniors around the world, these events give us a chance to mix and meet new people, because we don’t get that opportunity to play with a lot of different kids from different countries, we’re kind of just playing the kids from within our own country because of the distance we face.”

Returning to Vilamoura this year as a World Team Cup champion – and hoping for more ahead of this year’s semi-finals against last year’s silver medallists Great Britain – is part of a journey five years in the making.  

“My personal pathway into wheelchair tennis started about five years ago,” Wenzel continued. “I came through a Tennis Australia initiative called Run and Roll, which they bought to my local town of Cairns, which basically worked on integrating wheelchairs into the able-bodied space. So I guess that was my grassroots way of getting tennis into my life, which has been life-changing for me.”

“Being selected into World Cup again this year is an honour for me,” said Wenzel, who currently sits at No. 6 on the Cruyff Foundation Junior Wheelchair Tennis Ranking for boys after reaching a career-best at No. 4 in January. “Having won the title last year with the Australian junior team, obviously that's probably the highest part of my career so far. But yes, I'm just super-excited to be back again. Not only that, but to begin a new chapter with a whole bunch of new kids that I've personally seen grow and develop through the past five years. To have Jin (Woodman) and Yassin (Hill) on board this year and to have the ability to contend for a title once again is super-exciting for me and I'm just really excited to see what we can do.”

 While top seeds Australia play second seeds Great Britain in one of the junior semi-finals, after Great Britain beat Belgium 3-0 to finish top of Pool B, Netherlands play USA in the other semi-final. Netherlands won both singles matches on their way to defeating France 2-1, finishing Pool B in second place.

Israel and Netherlands to contest quad final

Since the quad World Group made its World Team Cup debut in 1998 only nine-time champions USA have won the title three years in a row, during an unbeaten spell between 2005 and 2007.

Netherlands will bid to equal that feat on Saturday after defeating 2019 champions Japan 2-0 in this year’s semi-finals. Sam Schroder and Niels Vink demonstrated why they are the world’s top two players after straight sets wins over Kei Usami and Koji Sugeno, respectively.

Schroder and Vink have beaten teams from USA and South Africa in the last two finals, but a new line-up for four-time World Team Cup quad champions Israel will be a new challenge after Israel’s semi-final ended in a 2-0 win over USA.

London 2012 Paralympic gold medallist Noam Gershony and Guy Sasson dropped a total of just four games between them across their respective singles matches against Andrew Bogdanov and David Wagner.

France beat men’s top seeds Japan

A late-night finish to the fourth day of play at Vilamoura Tennis and Padel Academy culminated in France defeating top seeds Japan 2-1 as Frederic Cattaneo and Stephane Houdet, multiple doubles medallists at the Paralympic Games, combined to defeat recent Japan Open singles finalists Tokito Oda and Takashi Sanada 6-3 6-2.

Houdet returned from his 10-month absence from competition in April, his last tournament before this year’s World Team Cup ending in a 4-6 6-3 6-0 semi-final loss to Sanada at the Japan Open, where he also beat Daisuke Arai 6-4 6-1 in the quarter-finals.

Houdet beat Arai by the same score to open France’s last Pool A round-robin tie before a spirited effort from Gaetan Menguy was not quite enough to prevent 16-year-old world No. 2 Oda from winning the second singles contest 7-5 6-3.

However, with Cattaneo and Houdet having been central figures in many of France’s most recent of eight men’s World Group victories at the World Team Cup, their experience proved key to closing out the tie to reach this year’s semi-finals.

Both France and reigning champions Netherlands started this year’s BNP Paribas World Team Cup with eight men’s titles apiece, just one short of the all-tie record of nine currently held by USA, but with France playing Netherlands in Friday’s semi-finals only one team will get the chance of a record-equalling victory in Sunday’s final.

Netherlands booked their return to the last four after beating Sri Lanka 3-0 to top Pool D, while Great Britain’s 3-0 win over Brazil saw them top Pool B. Spain, silver medallists behind Netherlands for the last two years, also finished their round-robin ties unbeaten at the top of Pool C after beating South Africa 2-1. Spain’s win came despite Enrique Siscar Meseguer and Martin de la Puente both being taken to three sets before claiming their respective singles matches.

Netherlands-France, Japan-Great Britain set for semis

Japan and Netherlands remain on track to meet in the women’s World Group final once again, with Netherlands defeating Switzerland 3-0 in Pool as Jiske Griffioen and Diede de Groot dropped just five games across their two singles matches. Meanwhile, Japan go into the last four on the back of a 3-0 win over last year’s bronze medallists USA that saw the second seeds top Pool B.

However, one of the most anticipated ties on the fourth day of competition was Great Britain’s Pool C contest against Germany to decide which of the two teams would join France in advancing to Friday’s semi-finals.

A decisive round-robin tie between Great Britain and Germany in Sardinia in 2021 ended with Great Britain having to save three match points in a deciding doubles contest before going through to the last four, but Cornelia Oosthuizen and Lucy Shuker managed to build an unassailable 2-0 lead after their two singles matches on this occasion.

France will play Netherlands in the semi-finals, while Great Britain face Japan.

Discover all the results from Day 4 here.