All about learning disability tennis


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Tennis helps people with a learning disabiltity develop skills that are useful to them in their everyday lives and form friendships that can last a lifetime.

The sport is played by athletes with a learning disability at local, national and international level.

International competitions are staged under the banner and rules of one of two major sports orgnanisations that cater for athletes with a learning disability - either Special Olympics or INAS-FID.

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Tennis is one of the sports played at Special Olympics National Summer Games and Special Olympics World Summer Games, both of which are multi-sports events held on four year-cycles.

INAS-FID organises elite sport competition for its members, The European Tennis Championships and The World Tennis Championships, which are held in alternate years.

 

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The next Special Olympics National Summer Games will be held in Leicester in 2009.

The next Special Olympics World Summer Games will be held in 2011 in Athens, Greece

 

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Did you know?

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Former Wimbledon champion Lleyton Hewitt of Australia is a global ambassador for Special Olympics and presented medals at the 2003 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Dublin, along with James Bond actor Pierce Brosnan.

"The games were truly inspiring and a credit to the people of Shanghai. We have met some wonderful people who will be friends for life. The tennis team were all fantastic and I can't put in to words how proud I am of them all. They performed on a world stage with great maturity and richly deserved the excellent medal haul they brought back for Great Britain."

Lesley Whitehead
Tennis Head Coach, Team GB, Special Olympics World Summer Games, Shanghai 2007, where Team GB tennis players won five Gold medals, two Silver medals and two Bronze medals

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