By Alicia Pillay.
Kgothatso Montjane and Yui Kamiji have teamed up to win the highest honours in tennis, emerging as 6-4 6-4 straight sets winners of the 2024 Wimbledon’s women’s doubles final against the Dutch duo Diede de Groot and Jiske Griffioen at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in London, England, on Sunday, 14 July 2024.
The pair were utterly scintillating in their 6-4 6-4 win over De Groot and Griffioen on Sunday, the Dutch duo exercised a slight upper hand early on but it wasn’t long before the South African and Japanese player worked their way to a 3-2 lead in the first set.
Then followed a bit of one-way traffic with Montjane and Kamiji taking an outright lead which preceded a determined fightback from the top-ranked singles player De Groot and her partner Griffioen, only for Montjane and Kamiji to force the first set win 6-4.
The second set proved to be a tricky affair as the Montjane/Kamiji opponents won a 2-1 lead early on, but it wasn’t long before Montjane and Kamiji to regain a 4-2 lead, in their favour. De Groot and Griffioen won a game back, and so did Montjane and Kamiji, now just a game away from clinching the title.
After De Groot and Griffioen won their game on serve, with the score on 5-4, Montjane and Kamiji served out the final tame to seal the set 6-4 and take the win, and the title.
This victory will be a big one for Montjane and Kamiji, who were silver finalists in last year’s competition.
The two began their Wimbledon campaign with a 6-3 6-2 victory over American Dana Mathewson and Japanese player Manami Tanaka on Thursday in the quarter-finals, before making easy work of their semi-final against Chinese duo Zhu Zhenzhen and Xiaohui Li, sealing that match 6-2 6-2, before surmounting the biggest mountain to win the title in 1 hour and 33 minutes, without having lost a set in the campaign.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has congratulated Montjane on her win at the Women’s Wheelchair Tennis Doubles at Wimbledon.
“Proud congratulations to our star from Seshego, Kgothatso Montjane, and her Japanese partner, Yui Kamiji, on their straight-sets win over Diede de Groot and Jiske Griffioen to become the 2024 Women’s Wheelchair Tennis Doubles champions at Wimbledon this weekend,” he said on social media X.
The pair have enjoyed success together, reaching at least eight finals and clinching the 2023 US Open and the 2023 French Open titles.