Kgothatso Montjane is not done. Let there be no doubt about it: the maiden singles Grand Slam title that has eluded South Africa’s wheelchair tennis trailblazer remains the target, and New York is squarely in her sights.
“I have one goal in mind, and that is to win a singles Grand Slam.”
Professional Wheelchair Tennis Player, Kgothatso Montjane
With the US Open the final major of the year, the mission is immediate. “I just need to keep pushing myself hard. I believe it can be done,” she says. “That’s just my biggest goal at the moment.”
It is the conviction of a player who sees her game trending upward even when the results have not yet followed, and who has made a career of doing what no one before her had done.
That conviction was on full display at Wimbledon this month. Partnering Great Britain’s Lucy Shuker in the doubles, Montjane reached the semi-finals before falling to the top seeds, a run made all the more emotional by Shuker playing her final Wimbledon before retirement at the end of the 2026 season.
“It wasn’t what I expected considering how I prepared before that,” Montjane admits of her time on the grass, before reflecting on what mattered most: the chance “to see her at least still win a match at Wimbledon before she really retires”.
The French Open is a treasured venue, marking the moment when Montjane won her first-ever Grand Slam title in 2023.
That win came in a gruelling three-set quarter-final against Ksénia Chasteau and Jiske Griffioen, played in heat England rarely sees. Montjane says a toilet break after the first set gave her the moment she needed to regroup, and from there the tactics crystallised. “I just kept telling Lucy to stick to the plan,” she says, a plan built on relentless rallying to the consistent Griffioen while pulling the dangerous Chasteau out of position.
Serving for the match, Montjane reached back two years for belief, to the day she served out the 2024 Wimbledon doubles final alongside Yui Kamiji to become the first black South African woman to win a title at the All England Club. “I’ve done this before, surely I can do it again,” she recalls telling herself. She did.
Of Shuker, her partner and friend, Montjane is unequivocal: “We will be losing like a hero and she will be missed dearly.”
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While the singles dream drives her on court, Montjane has already begun laying the path off it, and she is doing the work personally. Through her foundation, Multi Sports Development Foundation, she is determined to “plough the path for the next generation”, with a tennis court already built at a special school in Limpopo for children with physical disabilities, equipment donations to follow, and an ambition to reach all nine provinces.
“We are focused on erecting sports facilities, and giving access to the disadvantaged.”
None of it happens alone, and Montjane is quick to credit the partners who have backed both her career and her foundation. “I’m really grateful for my personal sponsors,” she says, naming Nike, Syensqo, and Dunlop among the brands that have supported her journey.
She singles out her Belgium-based Syensqo for making the Limpopo facility possible: “They actually contributed a huge donation for us to really build that facility.” And she reserves special thanks for those driving the projects on the ground, with “the biggest shout out to my team at Optimize” for ensuring the foundation’s work is executed.
South African wheelchair tennis star Montjane, a multiple gsport Award winner, will attend the 2026 gsport Awards as an industry icon.
The work is personal because the gap is personal. Montjane is candid that wheelchair tennis does not receive the national support its athletes’ consistency at Grand Slam level deserves. “It’s not easy to really keep up,” she says. “Tennis is a very demanding sport.” What keeps her going is her hope that “one day it will open up so that the new generation doesn’t suffer”.
She knows better than anyone what visibility can do. “I get to be the first of many,” she says of her pioneering career. “One has to see to be able to believe it, that it can happen. I didn’t see anyone doing it, but here I am.”
With her sights set on a maiden singles Grand Slam title, Montjane is now in serious preparations for the 2026 US Open.
That visibility is something Montjane credits gsport with championing throughout her career. A multiple gsport Award winner, she attends this year’s ceremony on Saturday 8 August not as a nominee or finalist, but as an industry icon and treasured friend of the platform. She laughs about the change of role: “Can I not be nominated? Can I just be an ambassador?”
For her, the recognition has always run deeper than silverware, and she describes it as “an honour to be part of gsport”.
Asked how the landscape for South African women athletes has shifted since her first gsport Award, she points to progress in football and the surge of netball. “We’re not there yet, but the conversations are on the table,” she says.
“We wouldn’t have been in the right path if we didn’t have movements like gsport”.
And when she looks around the room at the Awards, at the rising stars who represent everything she is building for, her message to them is direct. They belong. “They belong right where they’re supposed to be,” she says.
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It was fitting that this conversation took place on Mandela Day, and Montjane closed with the man whose path made hers possible. “That’s the path he created for all of us,” she says. Her charge to South Africa’s young girls carries his spirit forward: “This is the time. So don’t be scared to really take up whatever dream that you really want to pursue.”
Because, as she reminds, “Their dreams are valid and they can achieve everything that they aspire for”.
Main Photo Caption: South Africa’s international tennis icon Kgothatso Montjane remains relentless in her pursuit of a maiden singles Grand Slam title, and her eyes are on the next opportunity at the US Open, staged at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York, from 30 August to 13 September. All Photos: Supplied
Photo 2 Caption: The French Open is a treasured venue, marking the moment when Montjane won her first-ever Grand Slam title in 2023.
Photo 3 Caption: South African wheelchair tennis star Montjane, a multiple gsport Award winner, will attend the 2026 gsport Awards as an industry icon..
Photo 4 Caption: With her sights set on a maiden singles Grand Slam title, Montjane is now in serious preparations for the 2026 US Open.