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Kai Ryan is likely one of the most gifted tennis gamers with a incapacity his coaches have ever seen.
Like every gifted Australian athlete, the 17-year-old, who has a type of dwarfism referred to as achondroplasia, has his checklist of sporting desires.
One stands out.
“I want to be a Paralympic gold medallist for tennis,” Kai advised ABC RN’s Drive.
However below Worldwide Paralympic Committee guidelines, his dream seems to be unlikely, if not not possible.
As Kai’s father, Nathan, defined: “Currently, for people with physical disabilities, there’s only wheelchair tennis”.
Since wheelchair tennis began as an indication occasion on the 1988 Paralympics, the game has not expanded to incorporate completely different classifications for various disabilities, like many other Paralympic sports have.
“It hasn’t changed since. And it’s a bit frustrating that all these athletes can’t compete,” Nathan stated.
So Kai, his household and thousands of supporters are hoping to vary this.
‘Compelled to play in a wheelchair’
Ten years in the past, when Kai was seven, he met Swiss tennis nice Roger Federer on the Australian Open.
“It was wonderful. He was so nice … That inspired me,” Kai stated.
Over the following decade, he learnt and performed tennis, competing at completely different ranges.
“He started with one shot, then got to two shots, then his rallies just got bigger and bigger. He loves competing, he’s a real competitor. He lives and breathes tennis,” his dad Nathan stated.
However Kai might solely get thus far.
It isn’t solely the Paralympics the place wheelchair tennis dominates. The Worldwide Tennis Federation (ITF) – the governing physique of world tennis, which organises the Grand Slams – has an analogous lack of classifications.
So with wheelchair tennis as Kai’s solely possibility, he not too long ago tried it out. And he was good – superb – coming runner up twice within the ITF Junior Futures Match.
However that did not imply it was straightforward.
“He’s played for 10-plus years. He plays in adult comps. He’s beaten people without a disability, and then he’s forced to play in a wheelchair,” Nathan stated.
Kai summed up: “It’s very hard.”
“With my disability, I have to bend over to get the wheel and spin it … Moving [in the wheelchair] as well – it’s confusing and hard.”
Alongside the best way, Kai obtained messages of encouragement and help, including from wheelchair tennis superstar Dylan Alcott.
Then all of the sudden, final November, every thing modified.
At a wheelchair event, Kai tipped and landed head-first on concrete. He suffered “a really big concussion” and remains to be recovering from his accidents.
In an announcement posted on his social media channels earlier this month, he introduced he was giving up wheelchair tennis.
“I loved playing the sport and wanted to be like Dylan [Alcott] but it was challenging – coming from a standing player, learning wheelchair,” he stated.
“Hopefully the ITF accepts players with physical disabilities who choose to play standing.”
So now, the campaigning of Kai and his household has a fair larger urgency.
The sport plan
Kai and Nathan have a recreation plan over the approaching months and years.
They’re pushing for recognition and adoption of ‘para standing tennis’ (earlier often called ‘adaptive standing tennis’) – or standing tennis for individuals with a incapacity – on the highest ranges.
The daddy and son are lobbying for the ITF to incorporate para standing tennis, which they imagine will make it extra probably for the Worldwide Paralympic Committee so as to add it to Paris 2024 or past.
Nathan pointed to the instance of badminton as what might be executed.
“Badminton [at the Paralympics] has six classifications – two wheelchair and the remaining are standing.”
Domestically, they need Tennis Australia to endorse para standing tennis and have an indication occasion on the subsequent Australian Open (this 12 months, blind and low vision tennis made its debut there).
Additionally on Kai’s checklist of desires: “Win the Australian Open.”
To this point, an online petition for his cause has obtained greater than 17,000 signatures.
Nathan and different members of the family have additionally written to the federal authorities and Paralympics Australia, which assembles the native Paralympic groups. The reply from the latter was not heartening.
“We got an [email] back from them saying that there’s only wheelchair tennis at the moment, so basically, to try different sports,” Nathan stated.
“It’s pretty disheartening when you hear that sort of stuff.”
ABC RN contacted Paralympics Australia about this response however has not obtained a reply.
However Kai and his household will not be alone of their efforts.
Nathan stated there’s dozens of different nations that “are battling for this, fighting for this same cause”.
On a visit to Japan this month, Kai and Nathan met with the founder and gamers from JASTA — the Japan Adaptive Stand-up Tennis Affiliation.
And there are indicators of progress, with para standing tennis holding its first world event (which was self-funded and unsanctioned) in Chile in 2016. Since then, there have been tournaments held throughout the globe.
“Wheelchair tennis started [at the Paralympics] 34 years ago and there’s been pretty much no change. But this isn’t a big change to make, [by] including these people,” Nathan stated.
“I just don’t understand.”
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