Paralympics 2024: A guide to wheelchair tennis at the Paris Games

Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid won the men's doubles title at Wimbledon in July

Key information

Dates: 30 August-7 September

Venue: Roland Garros

Gold medals on offer: Six

What are the rules of wheelchair tennis?

Wheelchair tennis is broadly similar to the non-disabled game but with a couple of key differences.

Players can allow the ball to bounce twice and while the first bounce must be inside the court boundaries, the second can be inside or outside.

In addition, at the serve, the server must be in a stationary position before serving the ball, but is allowed one push of the wheelchair before striking the ball.

Matches are the best of three sets and a tie-break settles each set as required.

Players compete in the men's, women's and quad divisions. The men's and women's division is for players whose impairment affects up to two limbs while those whose impairment affects three or more limbs compete in the mixed-sex quad division.

Who is competing for GB in Paris?

Paralympic gold is the only major honour in the sport that has eluded Alfie Hewett so far and he will want to put that right on the clay at Roland Garros where he has won three career singles titles - most recently in 2021.

Gordon Reid already has Paralympic gold from his singles win in 2016 and beat Hewett in the bronze play-off in Tokyo - a match neither player looked like they wanted to be involved in.

But having dominated the men's doubles for the last few years - including winning the past five French Open titles, Hewett and Reid will be favourites for gold in that event.

Who are the other challengers?

Japanese 18-yera-old Tokito Oda has taken over the mantle of compatriot Shingo Kunieda and he and Hewett are battling it out at the top of the world rankings.

Oda won the French Open both last year and this year, where he beat Argentina's Gustavo Fernandez in the final, and will be seeking a first Paralympic medal.

World number one Diede de Groot will be bidding for back-to-back titles in the women's singles - an event where the Dutch have won every gold medal since the first time tennis appeared at the Games in 1992.

But De Groot was pushed to three sets by China's Zhenzhen Zhu in the French Open final while Japan's Yui Kamiji and De Groot's compatriots Jiske Griffioen and Aniek van Koot will aim to challenge in both the singles and doubles.

There will be a new quad singles champion following the retirement of two-time winner Dylan Alcott.

Dutch pair Sam Schroder and Niels Vink, who won silver and bronze in Tokyo, will be challengers. Israel's Guy Sasson won his first Grand Slam title at Roland Garros in June, beating Schroder in an epic encounter.

Did you know?

Belgium's Joachim Gerard will be hoping for better fortune in Paris after he had a major health scare in Tokyo.

Gerard, a bronze medallist in Rio, was beaten in the third round of the men's singles in Japan and days later he suffered cardiac arrest at the Paralympic Village and had to be taken to hospital.

The 35-year-old world number six has since made a full recovery and returned to the game and will be competing at his fifth Paralympics in France.

ParalympicsGB Tokyo 2020 medals

Four - two silver (Gordon Reid & Alfie Hewett and Lucy Shuker & Jordanne Whiley) and two bronze (Reid and Whiley)