Tennis Foundation celebrates its most successful Paralympics
The Tennis Foundation have celebrated its most successful Paralympic Games ever for players on its World Class Performance Programme with a special event at St James’s Palace.
Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Gloucester, Honorary President, the Lawn Tennis Association, jointly hosted members of the Tennis Foundation’s World Class Programme who represented ParalympicsGB and claimed six medals at the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games including two bronze, three silver and one gold.
Gordon Reid, Alfie Hewett, Andy Lapthorne, Jamie Burdekin, Lucy Shuker and Jordanne Whiley all picked up medals and numerically Great Britain finished top of the seven countries that made up the wheelchair tennis medal table in Rio winning 33% of the available medals for the Paralympic Tennis Event.
Geraint Richards, Head of Disability Player Performance at the Tennis Foundation, said:
“The success the Tennis Foundation had in Rio was unprecedented and it was fantastic to have such a special event to celebrate.
“We are already working towards Tokyo 2020 and it is important for us to use this success to inspire more people to take up the game so we have real strength and depth and enjoy success for years to come. We couldn’t have achieved this without the support of UK Sport and National Lottery funding and we hope this will continue into the next cycle.”
The celebration event was also an opportunity to invite people who had taken part in many other charitable Tennis Foundation programmes across their work in education, for disabled people and in disadvantaged communities.
These included mentors and pupils from secondary school programme, Beyond the Baseline, and activators and teenagers from SERVES, an initiative which takes tennis into communities that may never had had the chance to play with pop up equipment in youth clubs and faith centres across the country.
The next opportunity for the public to watch their Paralympic stars is the NEC Wheelchair Tennis Masters held at Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park at the end of November. Tickets for the event are on sale now.
