Seven years ago, Jiske Griffioen left the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center after winning the US Open wheelchair doubles title for a fourth, and what she thought was the last, time. In 2022, the former world No. 1 is back—and looking like a bona fide contender to win the only title that's missing from her glittering resume.
Griffioen, now 37, retired from professional wheelchair tennis in 2017, saying she no longer had the "fire" to compete at the highest levels. It's a conclusion one can come to when, essentially, they've won nearly everything there is to win in their chosen sport. Over the course of a tour-level career that began in 2001, Griffioen captured 59 singles titles, 106 doubles titles and held the No. 1 spot in singles for 106 weeks. An 18-time Grand Slam champion between singles and doubles—11 of the latter came alongside her legendary compatriot Esther Vergeer—Griffioen also swept the singles and doubles gold medals at the Rio Paralympics.
But in late 2019, the fire returned, and on Wednesday, in the fourth Grand Slam tournament of her comeback so far, Griffioen scored one of her best wins: a 6-1, 6-3 upset over No. 4 seed Zhu Zhenzhen in the first round of the US Open Wheelchair Championships presented by Deloitte.
"It's a special feeling, especially when you walk into the venue for the first time again," Griffioen told USOpen.org after the match. "It's overwhelming to be back, but I'm really happy."
Her play over the course of 77 minutes on Court 5 looked like she never left. The off-the-court comeback to Flushing Meadows, though? That first proved more challenging.
"I had to ask Aniek van Koot, one of the Dutch players, 'Where is the players' lounge again? Where's this? Where's that?' I totally, sort of, forgot," she added, grinning. "Then when you're back, you're like, 'Oh yeah. Now, I remember what it looks like.' Everything got an upgrade. It's really nice. All the Slams are constantly improving and it makes it a better and better place to compete."
Griffioen says that her comeback was motivated, in part, by wanting to finish her career on her own terms. After she left the game, she stayed close to tennis: She coached a little bit, and trained with the current crop of Dutch pros including van Koot and Diede de Groot. That initial foray into post-tennis life is what led her to a crossroads.
"It was not a decision I wanted to make, but I was not in a very good mental state at that time so I had to retire," she said. "It was a really long battle to get back to being healthy again. I started playing tennis a little bit just for fun, and never thought I was going to go back to full-time tennis at all. But I started to hit with the top players like Diede and Aniek, just as a hitting partner for them, and that was really fun. So then, you kind of feel like, 'Oh, maybe I still have the level.' At the same time, I started to do a little bit of coaching of the juniors. At that point, I was like, 'Okay, I cannot do both.' I had to make a decision.
"I was at an age where I thought, 'Well, if I want to do it as a player one more time, I have to do it now; otherwise, it's too late,' so I decided to do it."
The results have been almost immediate: So far in her return, she's won six additional singles titles and four doubles titles—a decent haul when considering that the 2020 season was truncated as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. In her "first" career, she ended a staggering 13 consecutive seasons inside the world's Top 10 from 2004 to 2016, and topped both the singles and doubles rankings. Today, she's solidly back up to world No. 7 in the singles rankings and No. 13 in doubles—but might not have been here had the US Open not expanded its player field from eight to 16 players.
It's a step that Griffioen says the sport wasn't ready for when she was first at the top, but one that's more than welcomed now.
"I think it's good that it gets more players into the Slams today," she said. "We see, for example, Takuya Miki beating Gustavo Fernandez [also in Round 1 on Wednesday], so that's somebody out of the top-eight who now gets a chance to play at the Slams.
"I think the game is ready to have a bigger draw size. It makes it more exciting as well, especially when you win, if you need to win more matches to win that title. I think it's a really good development, definitely ... and I think it's the right time to do it."
Griffioen will seek to win back-to-back matches at a major for the first time in her comeback when she takes on Manami Tanaka in the quarterfinals. Doing so would put her in the US Open semifinals for a six time; she never reached the final in eight previous trips to New York.
"You raise the bar every time," Griffioen said. "First, my ambition was to play back in the Grand Slams. Once you're back, you're like, 'I just don't want to be back, I want to win matches.'
"I won a round at Roland Garros and Wimbledon, but now, I'm at the point where I really want to fight for titles again. I think this summer my level raised, so I feel like I'm ready to beat those girls.
"I never won singles here, so that's a pretty big motivation. I love hard courts, so it feels good to be here. It's my favorite surface. I always found the US Open a bit hectic, crowded and chaotic, but I think I found a way to keep my peace more and enjoy it more. I'm just ready to give everything and do the best I can here."
