Novak Djokovic's defeat against Alexander Zverev in the semifinals of the Tokyo Olympic Games made the possibility of seeing the Serbian tennis player conquer the so-called Golden Slam disappear, which consists of winning all four Grand Slam and Olympic gold in the same season. However, two chair tennis players have managed to equalize in the US Open that rAn example that Steffi Graf had only gotten so far in 1988: they are the Australian Dylan Alcott and the Dutch Diede De Groot.
Alcott, 30, who became a paraplegic when he was just a child after having a tumor removed, He is the great figure of men's tennis in the quad modality since making the leap to professionalism in 2014 after winning Olympic gold with Australia's wheelchair basketball team at the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games and being runner-up at the 2012 London Games.
Since 2018 he is the true dominator of the circuit since, Since 2015 and with the exception of 2017, the year has always ended at number 1 in the ranking. In fact, Alcott's figures are impressive since in 294 official matches played in his career accumulates 240 victories by 54 defeats, with 82% of games won.
The Australian accumulates a total of 42 titles since he made the leap to professionals, including the Australian Open (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021), Roland Garros (2019 and 2020), Wimbledon (2019 and 2021) and US Open (2015, 2018 and 2021), in addition to two Paralympic golds at the Rio 2016 Games and the recent Olympic gold at Tokyo 2020.
Just as impressive or even more is the trajectory of Diede de Groot, who at 24 has become the great dominator of the women's wheelchair tennis circuit since 2018 after making the leap to professionals in 2012. De Groot, who was born with his right leg shorter than his left leg, began playing chair tennis at age 7 to turn pro at 17 and his figures are also impressive when we talk about matches since he has played 391 matches on the circuit with a spectacular balance of 324 wins by 67 losses, which indicates 83% of matches won.
These victories have also been reflected in De Groot's record, which has accumulated a total of 54 titles, Among which stand out Australian Open (2018, 2019 and 2021), Roland Garros (2019 and 2021), Wimbledon (2017, 2018 and 2021) and US Open (2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021), in addition to the Olympic gold achieved this year in Tokyo 2020. An example of overcoming and effort that, in addition to all these victories, has also been rewarded with this Golden Slam, a milestone that only a select few have achieved.