Tennis Australia initiative gives Hayley's Paralympic dreams a sporting chance

A spinal injury at birth left 15-year-old Hayley Slocombe unable to play most sports, but a chance encounter with wheelchair tennis over a decade ago presented itself as the perfect opportunity to pick up a racquet.

Arriving at a ‘Come and Try’ day when she was five-years-old, Slocombe said she fell in love with the sport.

Now, after having played for more than half of her life, she is eyeing the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic Games.

But Slocombe is just one of many young people increasingly participating in wheelchair tennis.

15 -year-old Hayley Slocombe has been playing wheelchair tennis for 10 years. Source: SBS

In 2015, Tennis Australia's junior development program for wheelchair tennis only had three players involved, but in the last 12 months that number has jumped to 34.

Wheelchair tennis coach for NSW, Kathy Fahim, said Australian tennis paralympians like Dylan Alcott and Heath Davidson winning gold at the 2016 Rio Paralympics is driving interest in the sport.

Now the organisation must cater for that increase in popularity, Ms Fahim said. 

“As we find more and more wheelchair tennis players, we need local coaches that they can go to to develop their skills, their technique and their tactical abilities on court,” she said.

This week, Tennis Australia announced it aims to have a coach, specially trained to teach wheelchair tennis, within 30 minutes of each athlete's home.

Opening doors

Junior player, 11-year-old Chase Burch, has spina bifida and said wheelchair tennis allowed him to continue playing sport.

“I used to play able-bodied tennis and then I realised I wasn't running fast enough to get to all the balls so I thought I'd give wheelchair tennis a shot and now here I am,” he said.

Slocombe said it provided her with a social connection to other people who use wheelchairs.

“The exercise is good and then meeting people that also play wheelchair tennis [is good], because you don't see many people in wheelchairs around so to talk to them and make friends is really cool,” she said.

Keegan Oh-Chee is a professional wheelchair tennis player and said the sport can boost self-esteem and wellbeing for people who may be unable to play other sports.

“They do feel themselves that they're different, so this can kind of help them with that in gaining confidence,” he said.

The next goal for Tennis Australia is to increase female participation in the sport.

“I would also really like to see some females, more female tennis players come through wheelchair tennis because predominantly it's been very male dominated up until now,” Ms Fahim said.