On Wednesday September 14 a team of 9 coaching staff from FuturePros Tennis Academy attended a "Think beyond the chair"- a wheel chair tennis workshop coaching course.
Coaches Kiel, AJ, DG, Krystal, Josh, Chloe, Jenna, Hunter & Indi
The day held up at Queensland Tennis Centre and presented by world renowned coach Greg Crump. Greg has been coaching wheel chair tennis since 1980 and is the current coach of the Australian Wheel chair tennis team.
All of our coaches thoroughly enjoyed the day. We all got into wheel chairs and were coached by Greg on how to operate the chairs and how to technically and tactically play Wheel chair tennis.
The afternoon part of the day was where we were coached on creating drills and games to incorporate both wheel chair and able- bodied players within the same sessions to encourage inclusive sessions for all.
Whilst in this session the Australian Paralympic doubles pair won a Gold medal in the finals match.
All coaches have re-newed appreciation for the skills of players who play in chairs.
We were lucky to have Kent McKelvie a current wheel chair player....
Kent plays in State, national and international tournaments. His highest world ranking is 176. Kent was also 2006 Tennis Queensland player of the year with a disability.
Kent will be coming out to Jimboomba within the next few months to do a display match for our local tennis players to show us that anything is possible no matter your storey.
We look forward to utilizing our newly refreshed and newly gained coaching skills on court to begin creating experiences and memories for our diversity tennis family members.
