On the first day of the Paralymics in Paris, an ode to wheelchair tennis

In the summer of 1992, Brad Parks captured a gold medal on the world’s grandest stage. More than 5,000 spectators, draped in red, white and blue, energetically supported Parks and his doubles partner, Randy Snow, as they showcased their tennis skills on the red clay courts of Barcelona. It took place at the Paralympic Games.

Facing their French opponents, Parks and Snow swiftly maneuvered their wheelchairs across the court as they exchanged a barrage of groundstrokes and volleys. This historic match was a triumph for the pair, as they were the first-ever wheelchair tennis champions at the Paralympics.

In the ’90s, Parks wasn’t just a competitor. He was also a pioneer. A decade earlier, alongside Jeff Minnenbraker, Parks co-founded the sport of wheelchair tennis, and propelled it from a pickup game to a sport played globally.

The legacy that Parks and Snow began in the Spanish seaside city continues on Aug. 28, when 96 athletes travel to Paris for wheelchair tennis competition at this year’s Paralympic Games.

I first learned about wheelchair tennis when I was watching Wimbledon in 2019. I marveled at the speed and skill of tennis players who had limited mobility yet excelled at a high-speed sport. It was impressive, to say the least, but I did not fully understand the extent of these athletes’ skills until I began playing tennis myself as a high school student in South Florida.

I was taking lessons at a public tennis center in Palm Beach Gardens when I happened to see a USTA-sanctioned wheelchair tennis lesson at a nearby court, and they needed a volunteer. I began spending my evenings picking up balls, assisting the players from their regular wheelchairs into their tennis wheelchairs, and then playing with them in practice doubles matches when there was an uneven number of players available.

Many of these players played tennis before their injuries while others were disabled from a young age and picked up tennis afterward.

Today, there are approximately 2,200 wheelchair tennis players in the United States, according to the USTA.

“If you've not seen wheelchair tennis, you cannot fully understand or appreciate the level of athleticism and performance that these athletes showcase,” said Rick Draney, a former world No. 1 wheelchair tennis player for both singles and doubles in the Quad Division, the category for players with substantial loss of function in at least one upper limb.

Draney was also a wheelchair rugby Paralympic gold medalist in Sydney at the 2000 Paralympic Games. He enjoyed an active lifestyle that included baseball, tennis and riding motorcycles before a car accident left him injured. Winning his first tournament in Fresno, Calif., as a young athlete was a transformative moment, with Draney realizing that wheelchair tennis could change his life. The sport helped Draney find the enjoyment of being physically active again despite his injury.

Wheelchair tennis players serve with power, unleash forehands, and rush to the net to smash the ball. The only difference between wheelchair tennis and able-bodied tennis is the two-bounce rule.

Parks' journey to Paralympic gold began when he injured his spinal cord in a skiing accident as an 18-year-old in 1976. Just weeks after being released from the hospital, Parks joined his parents on the tennis court in a standard hospital wheelchair, not the specially designed lightweight sports wheelchairs used for tennis today.

One year after his first foray onto the hardcourts, Parks competed in the inaugural wheelchair tennis tournament hosted at Los Angeles’ Griffith Park and organized by the city’s Parks and Recreation Department. He won the title, defeating an experienced wheelchair basketball player—possibly the best wheelchair athlete of the time—who was experimenting with the new sport.

“It was interesting,” Parks said, reflecting on this first tournament. “None of us really knew what we were doing.”

By 1980, the sport started to take off, and Parks created the National Foundation for Wheelchair Tennis to promote and develop it further. In 1989, he transferred all international responsibilities to the ITF. By 1998, the USTA assumed governance of wheelchair tennis, significantly contributing to the sport's growth.

Jason Harnett, the USTA Director of Wheelchair Tennis and Team USA Head Wheelchair Tennis Coach, credits this shift for much of the sport's current success. In 2021, Harnett and his team successfully merged wheelchair tennis with the standard operations of the USTA.

“Everything we do in the able-bodied side, we do in the world of disability,” said Harnett, who coached the U.S. team in the last five Paralympic Games. “Our job is to make sure that all wheelchair tennis players are represented.”

⤵️ WATCH: Jason Harnett on coaching wheelchair players ⤵️

The number of junior wheelchair tennis players who participate in USTA-sanctioned weekly group events grew from around 20 in 2019, to 300 today. The USTA is also contributing to the growth of collegiate wheelchair tennis programs. There are more than a dozen nationwide, up from only two university wheelchair tennis programs in 2016.

Micah Velte is one example of many whose goal is to win a Paralympic medal. Playing for seven years, the 11-year-old competes regularly in USTA-sanctioned practices in Long Beach, California.

“It’s great for Micah to get out there and exercise,” said his father, Jonathan Velte.

I met Micah and his father while scouring the courts of L.A. for wheelchair tennis players to interview for a class project. As a journalism major at the University of Southern California, wheelchair tennis was the first idea that came to mind for an assignment about people overcoming adversity. Wheelchair tennis is the epitome of “triumph over tragedy.”

That is also how I learned of aspiring Paralympian Andrew Bogdanov.

Currently ranked No. 19 in quad singles wheelchair tennis, Bogdanov began playing the sport during the COVID-19 pandemic, when social distancing prevented him from participating in team sports like wheelchair basketball and softball. Bogdanov and his friends bought racquets from Goodwill and casually hit balls.

“It was just purely recreational at that point,” Bogdanov said. “Never did I think it would turn into something professional.”

Bogdanov’s mind changed when he entered his first tournament and realized that tennis allowed him to concentrate entirely on the game rather than his disability.

“If I didn't have the time and money for myself, it'd be extremely hard for me to get to the level and to be where I am today,” he said.

In a pioneering initiative, the US Open became the first Grand Slam to add a junior wheelchair competition in 2022, opening up even more opportunities for growth.

It all circles back to Parks and his initiative to validate wheelchair tennis on a larger scale, make it more accessible and as mainstream as possible.

Laya Albert is a journalism student at the University of Southern California.