Today sees the beginning of the Wheelchair Tennis tournament at the Paralympic Games in Brazil. Rio has already seen great shows on the tennis court, with Andy Murray picking up yet another gold medal for team GB. His final against Juan Martin Del Potro was one of the toughest of his career, but don’t think that all the tennis is over. The Paralympics began on Wednesday and it is now the turn of Murray’s wheelchair counterparts to entertain the crowds.
Wheelchair Tennis is not as different as you may think. You may think it is a different game much like wheelchair rugby, which was all different but the name. You needn’t worry about that in Wheelchair Tennis though as it follows the original game tightly but with one major exception. The ball can bounce twice. Other than that, the game plays out much like the original game but maybe with an added element of movement being more difficult. While in Tennis you move your player about to create the openings, in the Wheelchair version just logistics of timing the chair turns and getting into the right position makes it immeasurably harder. This chess match of tennis skill and wheelchair control is what makes it fascinating for me.
There has always been adventurous tennis players in wheelchairs, but it was not until 1976 it started to take off. American Brad Parks was one of the first to try to push it as a sport, and along with his friend Jeff Minnenbraker went to great lengths to put on exhibitions in their own time. Eventually in 1988, eight countries came together and formed the International Wheelchair Tennis Federation.
One of the first superstars of the sport was a Dutch woman called Chantal Vandierendonk, who was actually an able bodied tennis player competing at the national level before tragically being involved in a car crash which made her a paraplegic. This was not the end of her tennis career as she went on to have great success and made the sport big in her small part of the world. To this day dutch women dominate the sport with four of the top five women from Holland. Her father even organised one of the first tournaments for disabled athletes called the Dutch Open. Since then the sport has gone from strength to strength. British star Jayant Mistry is one of the most famous. He won 68 international titles including the Wimbledon doubles in the inaugural year in 2005.
The pinnacle of the sport now however is the Paralympics. While all major opens now have wheelchair competitions it was the introduction of the sport to Barcelona in 1992 that gave some of the players greaterto focus on. (Quads did not enter until Athens in 2004). The Olympics and Paralympics are still seen as the pinnacle of most sports in the world, and without the money that able bodies tennis has, the Paralympics is the epicenter of all disabled players.. Rio will see 100 athletes taking part in six different divisions at the Olympic Tennis Centre. Unfortunately the Paralympics has been in the paper for the wrong reasons, with political and financial instability directly affecting whether all the events will be able to be held. Nevertheless the competition is likely to be as fierce as usual.
In the men’s singles event Quads Dylan Alcott from Australia and American David Wagner will fight it out for gold. Alcott is favourite with betting tips sites. Alcott has a particularly interesting story having already won Paralympic gold, but not in tennis! He won gold at Beijing in Wheelchair Basketball. These are the kind of stories which are so fascinating in Paralympic sport. In the standard men’s signals its Japanese Shinjo Kunieda who is the standout man.
Wheelchair tennis may be a different game, but you will immersed if coming from a able bodied tennis background. You will also enjoy the stories about the players’ background and the skill of playing tennis and using a wheelchair. For Team GB fans out there too you will have a player who is arguably the greatest tennis player we have ever produced to support. Jordanne Whiley won the calendar-year grand slam in 2014 winning the US Open, Wimbledon, Australian Open and Roland Garros. Eat your heart out Andy Murray!
Make sure you show your support to our fellow tennis players in Rio this month!
