![\"Niels](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/54a37add7eb5b2f8da20c399f26ecbb8.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nNiels Vink has paid tribute to his late coach after winning the Australian Open quad wheelchair singles title for the first time.<\/p>\n
World number one Vink avenged last year’s defeat to fellow Dutchman Sam Schr\u00f6der in Saturday’s final, winning 6-3, 7-6 (7\/5) in an hour and 36 minutes.<\/p>\n
Second-seeded Schr\u00f6der was attempting to win his fifth straight title at Melbourne Park.<\/p>\n
Vink has now completed the career ‘grand slam’, and he dedicated the victory to his coach Hans-Jurgen Striek, who died last September.<\/p>\n
The 23-year-old carried a photo of himself with Striek on court, in honour of their successful seven-year partnership.<\/p>\n
“We started the journey together and we wanted to finish it and, in our eyes, finish it to win them (major titles) all,” Vink said.<\/p>\n
“But, sadly, he didn’t make this one, so he’s still here.<\/p>\n
“We did it. This one is, for sure, for him.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Niels Vink carried a photo of his late coach Hans-Jurgen Striek on court for the final. (AP: Dita Alangkara)<\/p>\n
The Australian Open trophy was the last piece of major silverware missing from Vink’s collection.<\/p>\n
He has won three Wimbledon singles titles and is a two-time victor at both the French and US Opens.<\/p>\n
Vink is also the reigning Paralympic gold medallist.<\/p>\n
“My dream was always to win the Paralympics but since Hans passed away, I have a different vision,” Vink said.<\/p>\n
“I want to enjoy [being] on the court and of course I want to win everything, but I remember last year I had to win for myself.<\/p>\n
“Since Hans passed away, it was like, ‘Let’s see how it goes’.<\/p>\n
“I want to enjoy [myself]. If I win, nice. If I don’t win, OK.<\/p>\n
“I could be happy if I had fun on the court and today I had fun and I have this bad boy (Australian Open trophy).<\/p>\n
“This one feels amazing. Of course, it’s my first slam without Hans, so that’s also very emotional.”<\/p>\n
In other results, China’s third seed Li Xiaohui won her first major singles crown in the women’s wheelchair final.<\/p>\n
Li defeated Dutch great Diede de Groot 6-1, 6-2.<\/p>\n
De Groot, who has won 23 major singles trophies, was chasing a seventh Australian Open victory.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Niels Vink has paid tribute to his late coach after winning the Australian Open quad wheelchair singles title…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":448950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[565],"tags":[64,63,6571,232244,2649,232243,647,188599,232240,232241,232242,85,747],"class_list":{"0":"post-448949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-australian-open","11":"tag-diede-de-groot","12":"tag-final","13":"tag-li-xiaohui","14":"tag-melbourne","15":"tag-melbourne-park","16":"tag-niels-vink","17":"tag-quad-wheelchair-singles","18":"tag-sam-schroder","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}