About 20 years ago, Robert Shaw was a youth tennis player in his native Ontario, Canada, and at age 16 he decided to become a tennis coach.

But not just a tennis coach of able-bodied players; for two years Shaw worked at the North Bay Tennis Centre, coaching wheelchair tennis competitors as well.

Young and old, sometimes in classes as small as three or four kids, Shaw sat himself in a chair and tried to teach the basics.

“It was actually quite enjoyable to teach because you had to work with so many different kinds of functional abilities,” Shaw said while competing at the US Open Wheelchair Championships. 

“As a coach, I found that way more interesting because you're always having to think on your feet in a lesson, of what can this person do and not do.”

Shaw enjoyed the teaching, even when his students would remind him that, well, no, they cannot just swing a full backhand like he was instructing.

Little did Shaw know that, just a few years later, he would be permanently in a wheelchair like those he taught.

Since a freak diving accident left him with incomplete quadriplegia, a spinal-cord injury at the C5-C6 levels and paralysis in all four of his limbs, Shaw has learned to become a wheelchair tennis player, and one of the best in the world at that.

He has competed at the Grand Slams for the past five years, with a ranking that went as high as No. 3 in the world in the quad division. 

A quarter-finalist at all four Slams, he won his first match here, 5-7 6-2 7-6(4) against Andrew Bogdanov, and will play Roland Garros champion Guy Sasson in the last eight. 

“I’ve been fighting through some injuries, to my arm and shoulder, the last year, year and a half, so I haven’t been able to be on court as much as I’d like,” Shaw said.

“My fitness isn’t where I’d like to be and my pushing has been slower, but I’m still striking a good ball when it’s in my swing zone, and happy to get a win today.”

What Shaw later revealed is that Wednesday’s match could have been his last as a pro; the 35-year-old has decided to retire at the season’s end.

“Realistically, me and my coaches know we’ve rung me out as much as possible,” Shaw said. “I can’t hit the ball any bigger, I can’t get any stronger in the gym, so for me this is as good as it possibly gets.

“That’s a big reason why I’m retiring, because I feel like I can’t do any more in the sport.”

Shaw’s acceptance of being a wheelchair player took time, with the mental aspects of the change almost as big a hurdle as the physical.

“What I found was post injury, it was really hard to let go of my ego as a stand-up player and just fully embrace being in a chair,” Shaw said.

"It was really hard. All of a sudden, I was no longer good at tennis. I was no longer able to hit a backhand. When I would go on court, I'd get killed.”

When Shaw eventually ran into some of his former students while playing sled hockey, “there was some good-natured ribbing” about him now being in a chair like they were.

“But the disability community in Northern Ontario is very welcoming, and they were super-helpful in helping me mentally and physically,” Shaw said.

The Canadian trained for a few years, then took two years off from tennis, before returning around 2016 and working his way up to Grand Slam-level tennis after several years.

Now, he’s leaving the sport with no regrets.

“I accomplished a lot of things in my career that I wanted to do, and now there are younger and stronger players coming up, so I’m not interested in hanging around and trying to do other things,” Shaw said.

“I’m very happy with how things have gone, so this seems like a good time to exit the sport. But hopefully after a few more wins.”

Catch up with all the latest results from the 2025 US Open Wheelchair Tennis Championships here.