LTA shine spotlight on Open Court disability tennis programme ahead of UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities

It wants tennis to help lead the resumption of disability sporting activity once lockdown restrictions end in England on Wednesday, and is supporting tennis venues across the country to get sessions back up and running.

Disabled people have been one of the groups most impacted by the coronavirus pandemic, and Sport England Chief Executive Tim Hollingsworth recently warned there is a real danger disabled people will be left behind as the sport and physical activity sector recovers. The LTA agrees that cannot be allowed to happen, and with lockdown restrictions in England ending this week and play already permitted in Scotland and Wales, the governing body is playing its part by working to get the Open Court programme back up and running to provide vital opportunities for disabled people to get active.

An LTA survey of Open Court participants has shown that while the majority say they are excited about the prospect of getting back on court and have missed the social interaction and wellbeing benefits they get from playing, it is also clear that even before this lockdown there still existed some apprehension about doing so. Almost half of disabled players said they felt uncertain about their safety and anxious about returning, and highlighted the importance of tennis venues reassuring users by continuing to promote the extensive hygiene and social distancing measures that have been put in place and the safe nature of tennis.

Shining a spotlight on disability tennis

To coincide with the UN international day, the LTA is therefore using this week to shine a spotlight on disability tennis and all those involved in it to help encourage more people to return to court and new players to give it a try. The theme of the international day this year is ‘Building Back Better: toward a disability-inclusive, accessible and sustainable post COVID-19 World’, and the LTA is committed to ensuring tennis in Britain continues to show how sport can help achieve that.

As a sport, tennis is a naturally socially distant activity and so is very low risk, while it can be easily adapted for players with different impairments at any level, making it a perfect way to help disabled people get active. The LTA has equipped a number of Open Court tennis venues with adaptive equipment to enable people to give the sport a go, such as wheelchairs to help movement around the court or tennis balls that make a noise when they bounce to help visually impaired players track the ball.

More disabled people than ever before were playing tennis before coronavirus 

Since its launch following the London 2012 Paralympic Games, the LTA’s Open Court programme has grown to become one of the largest disability programmes of its kind in any sport, with a record number of disabled people playing tennis across Britain in 2019. The continued development of the programme and making tennis more relevant, accessible, welcoming and enjoyable for disabled people, forms part of the LTA’s wider commitment to inclusion and diversity, and it’s strategy to open tennis in Britain up to more people.

Through the Sport England funded programme, the LTA works with a range of partner organisations and a network of more than 400 venues across the country to provide opportunities to play tennis to people with a range of impairments and long-term health conditions. As well as supporting clubs and venues to become more inclusive, Open Court provides subsidised sessions for deaf tennis, learning disability tennis, visually impaired tennis and wheelchair tennis, alongside activity to help people with mental health problems and a range of other conditions such as Parkinson’s disease.

Alongside that, the LTA also coordinates a calendar of disability-specific tennis competitions both regionally and nationally across Britain, providing the chance for anyone to compete at an appropriate level for them, whether they are a novice or a seasoned player.

The surge in grassroots disability tennis participation has also translated to increased success at an international level. There has been greater prominence of wheelchair tennis with the success of the likes of Alfie Hewett and Jordanne Whiley at Grand Slams, but more broadly, last year Great Britain was the only nation in the world to win trophies and medals at all four of the major international disability tennis tournaments covering visually impaired tennis, learning disability tennis, deaf tennis and wheelchair tennis.

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