Wheelchair tennis – how does that work? According to Tim Rusby-Smith, the short answer is – ‘Remarkably well!’

I used to play tennis regularly, before my spinal cord injury, and my expectations for wheelchair sport in general have always been coloured by my pre-injury experiences. Silly really, but as with most aspects of life after sudden disability, it’s hard not to make such comparisons.

Although I had a brief encounter with mini-tennis at the spinal unit during my rehabilitation, it wasn’t until February 2008 that I took to a full size court with proper tennis balls – the ones used for mini-tennis are unpressurised and play much slower. A friend of mine, who is a keen tennis player, took to the court with me so that I might test the potential. I was already considering the Novice “Tennis Camp” run annually in Nottingham by the Tennis Foundation, but I wanted to try it out on my own terms, just in case I made a complete idiot of myself. 

STARTING FRESH

From the moment I picked up the tennis racket in a wheelchair, though, it felt right. My friend and I both immediately saw the potential, especially as a sport that I could play in my local park with able-bodied friends, rather than going away and playing sport exclusively with other wheelchair users.

Pushing the chair while holding the racket was a nightmare, but if I got close enough to the ball, I could hit that sucker with real satisfaction. Top-spin is top-spin whether you are standing up or sitting down, although the angles are somewhat different. The main problem on that first attempt was the ball coming right at me. My internal voice would say: “It’s coming right at me! It’s coming right at me! It’s going to hit me on the nose! It’s going to—it’s hit me on the nose!” 

The big difficulty I found myself facing was that after years of moving instinctively – an attribute most vital in sport – I had to make a conscious decision and then take action. And, of course, I am now a bigger target.

TENNIS CAMP

Still, it was encouraging. Two weeks later I left for Nottingham in high spirits. On arrival at the tennis centre, I found myself surrounded by wheelchair users and “walkers” who were trying tennis as a wheelchair sport. There was a broad mixture of people, all ages and a wide variety of disabilities. And there were tennis chairs. Nice shiny new tennis chairs. 

It didn’t take long to set everyone up with a chair that was suitable, and we started with some gentle pushing exercises. It was soon clear that not everyone had experience of wheelchair sport, and it took a while to convince newcomers of the stability and manoeuvrability of a sports wheelchair. A tennis chair is impossible to flip over, allegedly. 

Our first challenge was a relay race from the baseline to the net and back. I went second in my team, and hurtled towards the net with impressive speed. Upon arrival, I touched the net, while simultaneously performing a sharp 180 degree turn – and promptly flipped the chair, suffering severe bruising to my ego! I needed to calm down a little.

The mystery I hoped to solve during my trip to Nottingham was how one holds a racket and pushes a wheelchair at the same time. So when we got to meet a number of top players, I took the opportunity to broach the subject.

“So, holding a racket and pushing the chair,” I said. “What’s that all about?”

“Yeah, I know,” came the reply. “Hard, isn’t it?”

It certainly is, and it seems that everyone has to try and work it out for themselves. People use different ways of gripping the racket, or a tacky push-rim on the racket side of the chair, but it’s really a case of trying as many different things as possible. And, of course, practice.

NO CLIQUES HERE

My experience in Nottingham left me eager to play more, and so I started driving to the opposite side of London every Sunday morning to see Stuart Wilkinson, a coach who works closely with the Tennis Foundation. Stuart’s enthusiasm is infectious and, combined with encouragement from more experienced players, I was struck by how welcoming wheelchair tennis. When previously trying a new sport, there have been many occasions when I felt a pressure to prove myself in order to “break in” to the existing clique. I’ve not found this to be the case with tennis; the openness and enthusiasm with which even the top players are happy to talk to and encourage new people into the sport is admirable.

So I finally have an outlet for my sporting aspirations, a sport where I can be competitive, but also have fun. A sport where I can (and did) win the Novice singles and Novice doubles titles at the National Wheelchair Tennis Championships. Novice titles. What a great idea. What a good way to encourage new players – the opportunity to play alongside the best in the country.

And perhaps the most important thing for me? I now have a sport that I play regularly in my local park with my able-bodied friends!

COMPETITIVE WHEELCHAIR TENNIS

Wheelchair tennis is growing rapidly throughout the world, often through the encouragement of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) – the 1998 integration of the International Wheelchair Tennis Federation into the ITF made tennis the first disabled sport to achieve such a union at an international level.  There’s been just one rule change to accommodate wheelchair users; anyone playing in a wheelchair is allowed the option to take a second bounce. 

There are currently 60 member nations and more than 120 tournaments on the NEC international wheelchair tennis tour. Players compete in three singles categories; men’s and women’s (where you must have “a medically diagnosed permanent mobility related physical disability” resulting in “a substantial loss of function in one or both lower extremities”), and a quad division where players must also have impaired function in one or both upper limbs. The most famous player in the latter is Peter “the Quad Father” Norfolk, who successfully defended his Athen’s Gold medal in Beijing. 

FURTHER INFORMATION

International Tennis Federation

www.itftennis.com/wheelchair 

Tennis Foundation

http://www.tennisfoundation.org.uk/disabilitytennis  

Lynn Parker 

(Head of National Disability Tennis)

0845 872 0522 

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