Tennis player Diede de Groot’s career goals, according to her website, are to stay No. 1 in the world, to win multiple Grand Slam, and to become an Paralympic champion. The 24-year-old from the Netherlands has already made a major dent in those goals — actually, she’s nearly crushed them.
She is currently the top-ranked player in women’s wheelchair tennis, and she’s won three singles titles in every Grand Slam — Wimbledon (2017, 2018, 2021), Australian Open (2018, 2019, 2021), US Open (2018, 2019, 2020) — except for the French Open, where she came out victorious twice in 2019 and 2021. So far this year, she’s won every Grand Slam she’s entered. Her success is especially impressive given that she only made her Grand Slam debut in 2017.
Aside from her 11 major singles wins, de Groot has racked up doubles titles at all four Grand Slams and won singles titles at the 2017 and 2018 Wheelchair Tennis Masters. To top it all off, she claimed a doubles silver medal at the 2016 Paralympic Games. You can expect to see her at the Tokyo Paralympics this summer. If she wins a gold there plus a singles title at the 2021 US Open, she’ll be the first athlete to achieve a Golden Grand Slam — claiming victory in all four Grand Slams and an Olympic Games within a single calendar year — in wheelchair tennis history, according to Paralympic.org.
Keep reading for some facts about de Groot that you may not know.