by Daniel Parker, RDPFS Intern
Blind tennis just scored an ace in Australia last week. Their inaugural , “the first national event of its kind,” according to . To mark this occasion, and in a continuation of our series on blind tennis, this article explores some recent history of the sport in the United States, going back to 2010. At that time, Sejal Vallabh, a student at Yale University, founded , a nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching blind tennis to children and adults who are blind and visually impaired, after experiencing the sport during a summer internship in Tokyo. Her organization operates in California, Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut. It was profiled in in 2012, in 2013, and given by Vallabh in 2015. Tennis Serves has a , although it has been inactive since 2015. Also in 2015, developed a blind tennis instruction program on Long Island and in Queens, New York. While not much has been published on it recently, does appear active, and provides some background. Finally, Lolina Fernandez, the current representative for the United States to the Executive Committee, founded Miradas de Esperanza), “which works with children learning blind tennis both in the United States and in Mexico,” according to . While countries such as Japan, Australia, and the United Kingdom may feature blind tennis more prominently, the U.S. has had a variety of programs spring up just in the last twelve years. Future articles will cover the current state of these programs.