For Kai Schrameyer, recipient of the 2021 Brad Parks Award, 30 years in wheelchair tennis have brought three Paralympic medals, an ITF World Champion’s trophy, victory at the NEC Wheelchair Tennis Masters, World Team Cup glory for his native Germany and, more recently, ground-breaking success as a coach in Canada.

While Brad Parks and his cast of pioneers were laying the foundations of wheelchair tennis in the second half of the 1970s, Schrameyer was embarking on his own playing career, although little did he know of the journey and success that would follow.

MORE: Kai Schrameyer receives 2021 Brad Parks Award

Originally tagging on to the end of his parents’ tennis lessons in Cologne from the age of six, Schrameyer’s passion for tennis gathered pace when he was 11 and his father’s job as a diplomat took the family to Burkina Faso in west Africa in 1979. He continued to play avidly when Belgium became home in 1982.

In February 1983, shortly after his 15th birthday, Schrameyer was diagnosed with bone cancer. Three months later, he had his left leg amputated above the knee.

Although back on the tennis court exactly a year after the amputation, Schrameyer struggled to stay competitive while playing on his prosthetic leg in the coming years. His first taste of wheelchair sport came on the basketball court while studying at the University of Michigan, which continued when he started law school in Germany.

A meeting with German wheelchair tennis player Juergen Geider changed all that – he persuaded Schrameyer to try tennis. However, it was a more established name that ultimately convinced Schrameyer to pursue the sport.

“My first impression was that wheelchair tennis was not all that great,” Schrameyer admits. “I only saw the best German players at that time and I originally planned on sticking with wheelchair basketball, because I found that more competitive. The game-changer and the one person that changed my life was Randy Snow.

“I went to the Swiss Open in 1990 and played ‘C Division’ at the time. It was intended as a fun weekend with some of my fellow German players, but I saw Randy play, I saw Laurent Giammartini play and I saw Mick Connell and remember being completely blown away by watching these guys.

“One conversation I still recall with Randy: he was very kind, encouraging and curious to know what I was doing. I was kind of star-struck that the great Randy Snow was talking to me, and he was the guy that pushed me over the edge into wheelchair tennis.”

'The game-changer and the one person that changed my life was Randy Snow - he was the guy that pushed me over the edge into wheelchair tennis'

A year later Schrameyer was back at the Swiss Open contesting the main draw, bowing out to Snow in the semifinals. Nevertheless, Schrameyer continued to make relentless progress through the ranks.

“I had the immense advantage of knowing the game of tennis,” he said. “I knew how to hit the ball, but the movement was challenging, as for any beginner. I would hit a shot and try and keep the rally short. But I had the best possible combination of prerequisites: the fact that I had played tennis before, and that I had what I call a minimal disability, so had full use of my core and my hands. I was in the top 10 after maybe a year and a half, and the only reason I got to where I got so quickly was that I had these perfect conditions.”

When wheelchair tennis made its Paralympic debut with full medal status in Barcelona in 1992, Schrameyer was the sixth seed for the men’s singles. He beat fourth seed Parks in the quarterfinals and second seed Giammartini in the semis, with only top seed Snow denying the German 24-year-old the gold medal.

Schrameyer and Stefan Bitterauf also claimed the men’s doubles bronze in Barcelona, but in 1993 he went on to create more history. Three years on from his first visit to the Swiss Open he won the men’s title in Geneva, earning the world No.1 ranking for the first time and ending the season as ITF World Champion.

'Everything was new and exciting in Barcelona and I didn’t expect to medal, so the raw emotions were stronger. I never played in front of bigger crowds than in Sydney - we felt like rock stars'

“I was the best in the world at something I deeply cared about and had worked hard”, he recalls. “This is what I imagined it must feel like to climb an impossibly steep mountain and look down from the top with a deep sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.”

From July 1994 to May 1996 Schrameyer played only one tournament while focusing on his law degree. He missed the Atlanta Paralympics, but soon regained his place among the world’s top players, becoming the first and only German to win the NEC Masters title in 1997 before returning to Barcelona in 1998 to help Germany win their first World Team Cup men’s title.

“Winning the World Team Cup with Germany is definitely up there as one of the top achievements in my career,” he said. “We were not necessarily favourites to win going into Barcelona, but there must have been something special about that city. We had great team chemistry and all four players set their egos aside for the greater benefit of the team and country. That allowed us to get to the finals and create an upset in the finals against the Netherlands.”

Schrameyer’s playing career would span a further two Paralympics: at Sydney 2000, he lost out to home favourite and eventual gold medallist David Hall in the men’s singles semifinals before claiming bronze. It was a ‘different feel,’ but for all the right reasons.

“Everything was new and exciting in Barcelona and I honestly didn’t expect to medal in my first Games, so the raw emotions were stronger in Barcelona,” he said. “Sydney was very professional, and the crowd sizes and media attention were phenomenal. I never played in front of bigger crowds than in Sydney and we felt like rock stars. I was hoping for a shot at gold, and despite a small disappointment about that missed objective, the bronze medal feels good in hindsight.”

'When you get someone fresh out of rehab and you throw them a tennis ball and their eyes grow wide, the idea that you’re making a difference in somebody’s life, that’s what I love'

Schrameyer accepted a scholarship from Georgia State University in Atlanta to pursue a masters in Sports Administration later that year, graduating shortly before the Athens 2004 Games, which he decided would be his last. After that, he turned his attentions to a marketing career that would revolve around the next two Winter Olympic and Paralympic cycles in Italy and Canada.

“After the Vancouver Games I had two realisations,” he recalls. “Firstly, I was not so cut-out for the corporate world so much and, secondly, I really liked Vancouver. That’s when the contact with Tennis Canada came about and I was offered the job as National Development Coach in late 2010.

“They needed somebody for grassroots development and so it was about how we got more players to build the foundation. I was working with provincial and local organisations to provide support for them to find more players, and how we could get more able-bodied coaches involved with and proficient at coaching wheelchair tennis.

“It became clear that, given my background, I could contribute to the high performance side too – so my job title changed to national coach, working with [Tennis Canada Director of Wheelchair Tennis] Janet Petras. We were both overseeing grassroots as well as performance.”

While Schrameyer’s role with Tennis Canada brought great success – including Canada’s first wheelchair tennis medal at a Parapan American Games in 2015, and a first gold courtesy of Rob Shaw in 2019 – he takes greatest pleasure from introducing new players to the sport.

“It’s the individual stories that mean the most to me” he said. “When you get someone fresh out of rehab and you throw them a tennis ball and you see the big lights go on and their eyes growing wide, the idea that you’re making a difference in somebody’s life, that’s what I love.”

'Wheelchair tennis allowed me to compete, to travel the world, to make it a profession. And it’s also helped me cope with a disability'

Schrameyer has enjoyed that same feeling in a series of trips to South America on behalf of the ITF’s Wheelchair Tennis Development Fund.

“They’re absolutely amazing experiences that I love being involved with and hope to continue in the future. There is so much gratitude from players, coaches and administrators in these developing countries, towards the ITF experts. All five trips I undertook for the ITF – two to Bolivia and one each to Colombia, Uruguay and Ecuador – have been an absolute pleasure and extremely enriching experiences. It’s great to see the power and universal appeal of tennis, whether it’s wheelchair tennis or not.”

Due to the pandemic, Schrameyer’s full-time role with Tennis Canada ended in the summer of 2020 but he maintains a part-time Paralympic consultancy role in the build-up to Tokyo and continues to work with several of Canada’s leading players, including quad singles world No. 9 Shaw and men’s world No.73 Thomas Venos.

“Thomas is one of our up-and-coming young adults. I was the first coach to work with him, and then I’m still part of Rob Shaw’s journey. But it’s the ones that will never be Paralympians but who have found something that has literally changed their lives – I think I would consider that my greatest contribution in terms of coaching.”

Drawing on how own background and route into wheelchair tennis, he says of the future: “I think the biggest challenge is the issue of disability, and how do you make the sport fair for all players. In my time there were still complete paraplegic athletes at the top of the game alongside the likes of myself and what I call my minimal disability, so the challenge is how do you figure that out and how do you work through that fine line?

“Wheelchair tennis has completely redirected my life. I was an avid tennis player, but prior to wheelchair tennis I didn’t see myself as being able to compete at a hight level. It’s allowed me to compete, to travel the world, to make it a profession. And it’s also helped me cope with a disability. It’s contributed to raising my self-esteem, because at 15 years old when you have bone cancer and you’ve lost your leg, your whole life is turned upside down. It gave me direction, it gave me purpose and, obviously an incredible network of people and connections. It’s had a massive impact on my life.”