Anyone for Wheelchair Tennis?

I started getting into Tennis recently, after watching Challengers (2024) and getting completely obsessed with Zendaya's character, Tashi Duncan. Tashi's love of the sport is completely integral to understanding her as a character (A fact I may one day write a full character essay on), and so I started researching the sport to understand her better, and wound up surprising myself by getting into tennis for its own sake as well. I haven't been watching quite long enough to have full-fledged opinions about the game or its players, but I'm curious to keep learning more about the sport and the tournaments and see what happens :3

The Game

The standing version of tennis is more mainstream, and a lot more accessible, but I've gotten way more interested in Wheelchair Tennis as I've started getting into the sport. The only difference in the rules of play between the two divisions are that the ball is allowed to bounce Twice before being returned when players are playing para versions of the sport, as opposed to single bounce abled players are allotted, in order to give players more time to cross the court to return the ball. The first bounce has to be within the boundaries of the court, but the second bounce can be anywhere. There are three categories: Men, Women, and Quads -- the Quads division being for players who have loss of function in both lower And upper limbs.

The only downside to having a prioritized interested in Wheelchair Tennis is that it's given way less mainstream attention in the broader Tennis sphere. Despite the fact that Wheelchair Tennis has been played at all four Grand Slam events since 2007, I have harder time finding matches -- I've been watching the Rolland-Garos tournament this week and have to watch the Wheelchair matches specifically through TNT Sports, because mainstream channels like the Tennis Channel won't stream or replay the Wheelchair matches to the broader audience. I've also noticed that the Wheelchair players are far less likely to be included in promo materials, compilation cuts, or be interviewed by reporters. You can still watch live streams of the lower ranked matches on the ITF's website, but the fact that the events are obscured from the mainstream Tennis audience kind of pisses me off.

That said, the ITF did recently announce that they'd be changing the Wheelchair Tennis Tournaments' grades in 2026, in order for them to better align with teh Grand Slams, ATP, and WTA tours. Hopefully, switching to using the standardized grades used by the mainstream tours will bump the Wheelchair Tour's visibility in ways that might lead to greater accessibility for the matches in the future, and I do hope that it will. I do feel like first, mainstream Tennis channels have to put in the effort to actually include the Wheelchair players in their roster of content. It's all well and good to say, "Well, the reason we don't put as much effort into making the Wheelchair matches easily accessible by mainstream audiences is because it won't get as many views", but you're sort of making it a self-fulfilling prophecy by making it borderline impossible to find the majority of matches and any information about the players, aren't you? I feel like it's something they need to do better with, but a lot of the times, it feels like asking abled people to consider the needs or wants of disabled people is treated as unreasonable. Go figure.

In addition to Wheelchair Tennis, there's another form of the sport for disabled players called Para Standing Tennis. This is for players who are physically disabled, but who are still able to play standing up. It originated in Latin America, and while it was recently recognized by the ITF in 2023 and still has yet to be included in any Paralympic circles, there have been a growing number of matches and tournaments played throughout the world as it starts to grow in popularity!

There are Four classifications for PST: PST 1, for players who have single upper limb amputations or similar impairments, PST 2 for players with unilateral lower limb amputations, mild cerebral palsy, or other impairments with a similar level of mobility; PST 3 for players with above-knee or bilateral below-knee amputee, bilateral arm impairment, or moderate to severe cerebral palsy; and PST 4 for players with short stature or other impairment with similar impact on mobility. PST 1 & 2 players are allowed a single bounce, while PST 3 & 4 players are allowed two.

Outside Links

Some Videos I Like

Some Matches I Like

As I said earlier, it's a lot harder to find full recordings of the Wheelchair matches -- let alone any of the Para Standing Tennis matches. There is a Para Standing Tennis YouTube channel that has uploaded some matches, but the editing tends to be a little rough (See the Siebert/Routledge match below with a flash warning for how sharply/quickly the screen cuts between games) and it seems like it hasn't uploaded anything in a while -- although I have a hard time reading schedules, so I'm not sure if there are just less matches this time of year or if the YouTube just doesn't get a chance to record all of them. They also don't tend to be played, let alone replayed, on mainstream Tennis channels. I've been able to catch some of the recent Rolland-Garros matches live, but I can't seem to find anywhere where the matches are uploaded to be replayed later? Similarly, a lot of the lower level matches can be found to watch live via the ITF website linked above, but they don't seem to keep recordings of every match, so if you miss them, you seem to just miss them forever :/ SAD! If anyone knows of a place where these matches are replayed regularly, please let me know!!!

That said, here are a few recorded matches that I have been able to find that I've enjoyed quite a lot:

Some of My Thoughts So Far:

Like I said, I haven't really been interested in the sport for very long, and so I don't have many complex thoughts about the more complicated/technical aspects of the sport yet. But here are some of the Rolland-Garros matches I was able to catch live -- this is most a list for myself, so I know which players to keep an eye on in the future. The fact that I can't seem to find replays of the matches means that watching them Live necessarily means I can't watch every Wheelchair match that was played = ANNOYING! But I suppose it is what it is. I guess this is why people wind up with favorite players in the first place lol -- so much tennis, so little time...

ROLLAND-GAROS 2026:

SASSON Vs. WOODMAN -- Quad Wheelchair Singles Quarterfinals

SHRODER Vs. GE.LAZARTE -- Quad Wheelchair Singles Quarterfinals

L.GUO/K.MONTJANE Vs. X.LI/Z.WANG -- Women's Wheelchair Doubles Quarterfinals

GRYP Vs. MATSUOKA -- Girls Wheelchair Singles Final

KAMIJI VS. DE GROOT -- Women's Wheelchair Singles Semifinal

GRYP/MATSUOKA vs. HEALD/LOPEZ MEZA -- Girls Wheelchair Doubles Final

REID/HEWETT vs. HOUDET/DE LA PUENTE -- Men's Wheelchair Doubles Final

D. DE GROOT Vs. K. CHASTEAU -- Women's Wheelchair Singles Final

A. KAPLAN Vs. N. VINK -- Quad's Wheelchair Singles Final

I do think I tend to find Singles a little more interesting than Doubles so far, or maybe it's just that Singles is easier for me to keep track of since I'm still new to the sport. It'll be interesting to revisit that particular claim the deeper I fall into this interest, I think LOL. I also think I tend to be fonder of longer rallies than immediate Ace shots -- I do understand the skill and power and the point behind Ace shots, but I like the flow of the game and so I enjoy it when they fall into a flow with each other for a while lol. I find the rhythm of the back and forth a little more compelling than the actual scoring of points; I lack a competitive spirit, I guess <3

I have put some idle time into thinking about the natural progression of this interest already, even though it's relatively new to me. The fact that I'm already ready to wake up at 4 in the morning to watch matches feels like it says to me that I'm already kind of far gone on it lmao. I'd be interested in keeping my options open for maybe traveling to see some events live -- Maybe the US Open later this year? Although I'll have to really try to focus on understanding the schedule for the smaller events to see if there's a chance of anything happening nearby where I live.

As for ever playing it, I'm not sure that's in the cards for me LMAO. I think I have just Too Many bad joints for it to be feasible -- even if I was able to afford a chair (since I can't really run without hurting myself, but more to the point, can't Stand for very long without hurting myself), and even if I was to tape the racket in my hand so that I didn't have to worry about straining the joints in my fingers, I think my shoulders and elbows are too unreliable to handle either the swinging of the racket or the kind of maneuverability required to get the chair across the court in a quick enough manner. Kind of a bummer, which is a surprise! But it is what it is -- for now, watching it is enough :3