Two inserts immediately jump off the page when reading Brian Tobin’s International Tennis Hall of Fame biography.

While ITF President, Tobin, it states, displayed "superb diplomatic skills", while many of the governing body's activities are said to have been "greatly enhanced" and to have "flourished globally" under his stewardship. 

If any evidence was required to substantiate such claims then the history of wheelchair tennis could well be put forward. If it was, it would not be so much a supportive testament, rather irrefutable proof. 

Widely regarded as a progressive thinker, Tobin was ITF President between 1991 and 1999, while for two years prior to his election he was its first Executive Vice-President. 

During his near-decade long occupancy of the ITF hotseat, the first formalised ITF Wheelchair Tennis Tour, which initially consisted of 11 international tournaments, was established and unfurled in 1992. 

Soon after, the inaugural NEC Wheelchair Tennis Masters were hosted in Eindhoven, Netherlands before, on 1 January 1998, the International Wheelchair Tennis Federation was fully integrated into the ITF.  

This ensured that wheelchair tennis was the first disability sport to achieve such a union at international level, while in the same year, the first official quad ranking was published and a quad event included at the World Team Cup. 

Also of significance, towards the very beginning of his first term as President, the maiden ITF Wheelchair Tennis World Champions were crowned, with Randy Snow of the United States and Chantal Vandierendonck of the Netherlands the inaugural winners in 1991. This proved an important step and special for wheelchair tennis players to be recognised alongside their able-bodied peers.  

Back in his native Australia – Melbourne, to be precise – Perth-born Tobin, now 90, has fond recollections of this period and his first meeting with the legendary Brad Parks, which piqued his interest in the sport. 

As the founder of wheelchair tennis, Parks requires no introductions, and did not to Tobin, although the impression he made on the Australian was profound and significant. 

“I first got interested in wheelchair tennis when I met Brad Parks on the beach at an ITF AGM,” Tobin told ITFTennis.com.

“He and his wife were on the beach and we were talking about what was happening. He was trying to get wheelchair tennis up as a real sport and I saw benefits for wheelchair tennis if all the nations of the ITF could somehow be included. 

“I saw it mainly as a social commitment for the ITF, to provide an amenity for less developed countries and some of the smaller nations.  

“I also thought it would be good for disabled kids and would give them a chance to play a bit of sport. That was my main interest at the time. No question, I thought it was good for tennis.  

“Brad also impressed me tremendously as he was a very capable bloke: he could hop down the beach, swim and play golf on crutches. Things went from there.” 

As with most new ideas and concepts, there were doubts in some quarters and concerns in others, with inevitable hurdles to clear in the early stages of the process, but those were duly overcome. 

“There were objections to it, ridiculous objections,” said Tobin, who was awarded the Order of Australia in 1986, the Olympic Order in 1999 and inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2003. 

“With any change like this there were people whose minds were hard to change, and they were saying, ‘wheelchair tennis has different rules, our constitution says we play by the rules’. 

“But anyone can think of problems. Eventually we saw some light, we sorted everything out and changed the rules of tennis.” 

Specifically, in 1998, the ITF AGM agreed to allow wheelchair tennis players to use two bounces when competing against able-bodied players, which had wide-ranging and far-reaching significance.  

It ensured that wheelchair tennis became a fully integrated sport at all levels and in the truest sense of the phrase. The move had positive repercussions throughout recreational tennis, in tennis club leagues and competitions worldwide and can be witnessed today at the demonstration events at Davis Cup, Billie Jean King Cup and Tour-level occasions. 

For any of this to take place, Tobin namechecks two individuals – in addition to Parks – who were significant in not only laying important foundations and establishing wheelchair tennis within the sporting landscape, but ensuring it flourished and became the force it is today.  

Former ITF Development director Doug MacCurdy is credited with playing a hugely significant role, as is Ellen de Lange, who continues to weave her magic as an integral member of the ITF’s wheelchair department.  

In fact, De Lange celebrates her 30th anniversary with the ITF this year, having been appointed as the first Executive Secretary of the International Wheelchair Tennis Federation (IWTF) in 1991. 

In the sport’s pre-ITF days, De Lange had ranked among the very best players in the world and won the women’s singles bronze when wheelchair tennis appeared as a demonstration event at the 1988 Paralympic Games in Seoul. As an administrator for the sport, she is – and seemingly always was – equally as effective and driven. 

"The wheelchair tennis department became a fully integrated ITF department in 1998, but in that period from the early 1990s through to 1998 we set up the office at the ITF and we had Ellen join,” recalls Tobin. 

“She got a couple of other people around her, and it was an ongoing exercise. But we couldn't have done it without Brad in the early days and we couldn't have done it without Ellen, who was the greatest operator in a wheelchair that I have ever seen.  

“She was marvellous. She had enthusiasm, she had expertise and she had played the game. She was involved with everything and was a major player in getting the first sponsor for wheelchair tennis which was NEC. Ellen was a real wheelchair tennis girl.” 

Whichever way you look at it, wheelchair tennis has grown exponentially over the past three decades, to such a point that it is one of the fastest growing wheelchair sports on the planet. 

When some of the achievements from the last 30 years are listed, progress has clearly been stark and quite staggering. After all, wheelchair tennis has been a Paralympic sport since 1992 and been contested at all Grand Slams since 2007. 

Furthermore, the sport’s professional tour – the UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Tour – which was established in 1992 now boasts more than 160 tournaments in 40 different countries in every region of the world. It also offers more than $3million USD in prize money and culminates in the season-ending NEC Wheelchair Singles Masters and UNIQLO Wheelchair Doubles Masters.  

“Our expectations at the start were not as grand as all that,” reveals Tobin – a recipient of the ITF Brad Parks Award in 1999 in recognition of his significant contribution to wheelchair tennis on an international basis.  

“I assumed that we might get together a few tournaments for wheelchair tennis players but not to the extent that it now enjoys.  

“The four Grand Slams have wheelchair events and wheelchair tennis has been included in the Paralympics – you can’t really do much better than becoming a Paralympic sport.  

“But wheelchair tennis has also attracted direct television coverage and I just never thought that would be the case. At a basic level, I just wanted to see young kids having an objective in life, and it remains great to see that.  

“I do feel proud when I look at how the sport has developed. That’s where it started, and it’s really grown and now wheelchair tennis is a major sport.” 

As always, a celebration of the past tends to give way to talk of the future. As far as wheelchair tennis has come since Parks and Tobin enjoyed their illuminating chat on that beach, questions about the next level and what it may take to get there will always surface. 

For Tobin, who has been retired for two decades, the baton of progressive thinking has long since passed to the sport’s modern-day custodians. 

Happy to sit back and watch the likes of Melbourne-born Dylan Alcott star and act as a pioneer for the game, Tobin prefers to reminisce and be content with the trajectory which wheelchair tennis has taken since the early 1990s. 

“When I was ITF President, it was great to see that each year the tournaments were better and were developing,” added Tobin, who travelled to 104 nations during his time as ITF President and attended numerous World Team Cups and Paralympic Games.  

“More people were running them and more players were competing in them. Gradually – well, not gradually, rather quickly actually – they grew and, from what we started with, we ended up with a pretty good professional circuit.  

“I’m not sure what more can be done. A professional circuit is established, there’s prize money, television. But, then again, everything moves on and I’m sure wheelchair tennis will. I just hope the sport will continue to get the support it deserves.”