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The annual Australian Blind and Low Imaginative and prescient Championships start at Melbourne Park in the present day.
Melbourne, Australia, 14 July 2023 | Leigh Rogers
A complete of 34 Blind and Low Imaginative and prescient (BLV) gamers, from throughout each Australian state, will contest the 2023 Australian Blind and Low Imaginative and prescient Championships.
The annual three-day occasion, held at Melbourne Park, begins in the present day and concludes on Sunday.
BLV tennis is performed with an tailored foam ball that may be heard rattling throughout the court docket. The courts are additionally smaller, with traces on the court docket raised to mark sure boundaries.
A number of completely different classes exist, catering for athletes with various levels of visible acuity.
“It’s nice to get these gamers collectively in a neighborhood the place they’ll really feel secure, have enjoyable and simply go on the market and be themselves. I believe that’s actually particular,” Danielle Gescheit, Tennis Australia’s Head of Gamers with Incapacity, mentioned.
“It’s additionally nice for them to compete. They’re all actually aggressive, similar to any tennis participant. Having a chance to exit and do their finest, in addition to characterize their state, is absolutely vital.”
Gescheit is especially happy to see the variety of junior opponents rise to 13.
“It’s good to see that progress,” she mentioned. “A few of the juniors may even play within the males’s and ladies’s divisions as effectively, so it’s actually pleasing to see that development too.”
Arato Katsuda-Inexperienced, an 11-year-old from New South Wales, is without doubt one of the juniors testing themselves within the open division.
“I similar to enjoying matches,” Katsuda-Inexperienced mentioned. “So I’m enjoying juniors, open B4 singles and open B4 doubles.
“I like that every one the adults that I play don’t truly deal with me as a child.”
> READ: No limitations for passionate Arato Katsuda-Inexperienced
Mark Haskett from South Australia is hoping to defend his title in the B2 males’s singles division.
“I’ve actually been engaged on my sport and attempting to develop new methods to get previous opponents. Fingers crossed all of it clicks,” he mentioned.
“I used to be truly meant to be in Cairns this weekend with household, however we had been capable of transfer issues round so I may get right here to play. I wouldn’t miss one in all these tournaments for the world.”
It has been a giant week for each Katsuda-Inexperienced and Haskett, who had been named in an 11-member Australian workforce for the IBSA World Video games in Nice Britain subsequent month.
The Worldwide Blind Sports activities Federation (IBSA) World Video games are the biggest high-level worldwide occasion for athletes with a visible impairment and shall be held in Birmingham from 18-27 August.
Australian tennis legend John Fitzgerald offered the workforce with their nationwide uniforms at Melbourne Park yesterday.
“As a younger child rising up, it was a dream to play for Australia,” Haskett mentioned. “To have the ability to do it in tennis is a big honour.”
E book on-line, play in the present day: Go to play.tennis.com.au to get out on court docket and have some enjoyable!
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