Wheelchair Tennis is challenging and very fun and addictive whatever your level! We are proud to support these sessions at the University of Kent. Whether you’ve not used a sports wheelchair before, have played some wheelchair tennis and want to level up your game, or you are any level of experience in between, these sessions are perfect for you.
Session schedule and format
Wheelchair Tennis sessions will run on the following schedule within the Indoor Tennis and Events Arena at the University of Kent Sports Pavilion:
- Mondays 12pm to 1pm and 1pm to 2pm
- Thursdays 6pm to 7pm and 7pm to 8pm
We will have two courts running in each session to allow us to make the sessions more challenging for people who are ready on one court, whilst the other court can be made more achievable. We will constantly check on your progress and see if we need to change the difficulty level as your confidence increases or indeed if we need to make activities more achievable at any time.
Our sessions will follow a similar format split into four sections:
- Chair skills
- Chair and ball skills
- Chair and racquet skills
- Scoring/playing the game
Pricing and booking
Sessions are just £5 per hour (thanks to some very generous support from Kent LTA) - you can book for up to two hours each day. Details of all Group Tennis sessions can be found on our Adult Group Coaching webpage.
Click here to book or more information
You will need a Kent Sport Pay to Play membership to join the Wheelchair Tennis session. This is a free membership and is provided automatically when you create an online account. Please visit our website for more information about Kent Sport and our membership options.
You can call the reception staff on 01227 823 623 or email Lead Coach Nick Skelton with any questions N.Skelton@kent.ac.uk.
Session support
We hope to have our local role models Ruben Harris and/or Ellen Tribley attend most sessions to inspire you to see what is possible if you stick with tennis.
Ruben and Ellen play international tournaments and whilst we would love to help you achieve this level, we are starting out with the hope that you will firstly enjoy being in the sports chair (we have plenty you can use), then find the real love of tennis that is:
- Becoming more physically active
- Stimulating mental health from problem solving, confidence, dealing with disappointments, perseverance, respect, and too many more to list!
- Joining an inclusive community
- Making new friends
- Learning new skills
- Competing at your level
"As one of the tennis coaches at the University, I can relate my experience of being totally new to the chair but quite experienced at tennis:
To be honest at first I felt a bit silly and self conscious because I was really struggling to even move the chair and master basic movements like turning and reacting to an incoming ball - never mind learning to hold a racquet at the same time!!
Now I have been practicing quite a lot and I feel a lot more confident and I can play the game - even if it’s still quite basic and inconsistent, I’ll keep practicing to improve!
To get to my current level of confidence, I started with simply chair movements: setting off, turning, stopping, changing direction.
As I gained in confidence, I added a ball and did some throwing and catching against a wall or with a partner and spent a lot of time missing the ball in truth! I kept at it and started to catch the ball more often and felt confident enough to add the racquet.
Again, initially, my confidence went backwards a bit and I focused again on just moving the chair while holding a racquet then moving on to hitting the ball - against a wall or with a partner.
Now, each time I get into the chair I follow that same process: get used to moving it whilst warming up, start throwing and catching whilst moving, then add the racquet, then to play some games/practices."