Wheelchair tennis: Paralympic champion David Wagner on the sport’s ‘skyrocketing’ growth ahead of Paris 2024

When American tennis star Danielle Collins made the Australian Open final in 2022, a legend of the sport was sitting in her player’s box, cheering her on.

David Wagner, a three-time Paralympic gold medallist and 29-time major winner in wheelchair tennis, counts Collins as one of his friends in the sport, along with Olympic medallists Venus and Serena Williams, Rajeev Ram, and other able-bodied pros.

It’s a unique relationship between the main tours and the wheelchair game, with the events often being held concurrently at the same venues.

“Wheelchair tennis is one of the few sports that integrates so well with the able bodied game,” Wagner tells Olympics.com in an exclusive interview last month.

“Sharing the cafeteria, sharing the locker room with them, learning from them and them learning from us. It’s really cool. There’s a lot of mutual respect from the able-bodied pros back towards us. And the feelings are mutual obviously for us to them.”

Next week (4 June), Wagner, who competes in the quad division of wheelchair tennis, will compete alongside some of the biggest names in the sport at Roland-Garros, an event he’s won three times in doubles. Stade Roland-Garros, home of the French Open, will also host both the Olympic and Paralympic tennis events for Paris 2024, a welcome sight for Wagner, who won two medals at London 2012 when it was held on the grounds of Wimbledon.

“It’s really cool that we’re back on red clay for the first time since Barcelona” in 1992, he said. “But the cool part for us is that the ball is a lot slower on red clay and bounces higher. [The surface] really impacts the ball and the play, but our push [of the chair] isn’t impacted as much.

“So, a slower ball with a regular, fast push, it makes for longer rallies,” he explained. “And it makes for more gets, more exciting tennis.”