Tennis

Wheelchair Tennis

"I tried archery and we did field sports and all sorts of things... I did swimming, I tried water skiing,  went scuba diving; you know, I tried lots and lots of things, but it wasn't until I saw tennis being played - and realised that tennis could be played - that was my 'light-bulb'moment." Peter Norfolk

"I went to my local courts and there was a guy there coaching...When he finished his lesson I went to see him and I said "I want you to coach me for tennis." And he looked at me, in my chair and went "I've never done that before." I said, "Well yeah, but it's tennis".And he said, "Are you any good?" And I said, "Not yet, but I'm gonna be."  Peter Norfolk

Wheelchair tennis is a recent sport and only began to be playedin Britain after 1990. Peter Norfolk talks about how he discovered the game here

Jayant Mistry first played Paralympic tennis at the Barcelona games in 1992 and retired after the Athens games in 2004

"When I was growing up the sport was quite young... You only ever played in one wheelchair. So then to go from that to in the early-90s people started having two wheelchairs and then started having more camber on the chairs and then having a wheel on the back... I feel fortunate in that I was part of the evolution of the sport." Jayant Mistry

Watch Jayant Mistry talking about the growth of wheelchair tennis as a sport here

Peter Norfolk won gold and silver medals at Athens in 2004 and repeated this at Beijing in 2008

Watch Peter talking about the differences between the professional wheelchair tennis circuit and the Paralympics here