It is remarkable to consider just how far wheelchair tennis has come since two Americans took to a tennis court opposite their hospital back in 1976. Some 44 years later, Brad Parks’ idea for a game to play during rehab is now a global sport played at Grand Slams and the Paralympic Games, with a circuit of professional players, multinational sponsorship and flourishing junior and development programmes.

Such success does not just happen, a consequence of its own innate promise; it takes perseverance, vision, sacrifice, and often a little luck. None know this better than Ellen De Lange, the woman who gave up her own wheelchair tennis career while ranked among the world’s best players to dedicate herself to its future, and who Parks credits with having had “the greatest impact on our sport.”

De Lange is every bit the force of nature as the sport’s administrator as she was as an athlete. As a child, she excelled at swimming, so much so that she represented the Netherlands at the 1980 Paralympic Games at the age of 15. Four years later she returned to the Paralympics, this time as a wheelchair basketball player. But neither sport captured her imagination the way wheelchair tennis did – despite the obstacles she faced to get on court.

“My family was playing tennis and I joined them at the club – that was the thing I wanted to do,” De Lange said. “But at that time in the Netherlands, we had mostly clay courts. Folk got scared when they saw me getting close to the courts with my wheelchair – they’d say, ‘No, Ellen, you can’t go on.’ So I’d hit against a wall behind the clubhouse. But I remember well how frustrated I was that I couldn't play.”

Her big break came at university, where the sports staff invited her to join the able-bodied tennis group: “I just played with everyone else, even playing with one bounce. It was a lot of fun. And after my first year I went to Israel for three months and saw everybody playing wheelchair tennis. I was hooked, and I played day and night.”

It was at university that De Lange demonstrated her powers of persuasion, convincing the faculty to allow her to switch from studying French to Sport. “I wrote them a letter and they invited me in to explain why it was not possible, but I was able to convince them that it was. They offered me a year, changed the curriculum a little bit, and in the end I was able to finish school.”

Alongside her studies, De Lange’s wheelchair tennis career was taking off. In the sport’s pre-ITF days, she ranked among the world’s very best, alongside fellow Dutchwomen Chantal Vandierendonck and Monique Van Den Bosch, and won a Paralympic singles bronze when wheelchair tennis appeared at the 1988 Games in Seoul.

'Folk got scared when they saw me getting close to the courts with my wheelchair, so I’d hit against a wall behind the clubhouse. I remember well how frustrated I was that I couldn't play'

“I think my proudest moment was when I beat Chantal,” De Lange said, looking back on her playing days. “She and Monique were both quite good tennis players before their accidents – Chantal played on a national level as a junior, and Monique was a very good player. I was injured when I was three years old and I only started playing wheelchair tennis when I was 18, so I had a lot of catching up to do.

“I had beaten Monique a couple of times, but my only win against Chantal came in 1990, in the only prize-money tournament we had at the time – I won $5,000 in the final. A week later I lost against her in my first US Open final, 6-3 in the final set – and the winner got a Rolex watch! But that one tournament that I beat her, that was my best moment. There are a lot of good matches in my mind, but that is the one I still have the trophy from.”

The life of a wheelchair tennis player was rather different in those days. The circuit consisted of 12 tournaments across eight nations, with players typically emerging from a handful of countries. Funding was scarce, junior opportunities sparse and scope for taking the sport to new nations reliant on volunteer efforts. Behind the scenes, however, Parks had convinced the ITF to bring wheelchair tennis under the purview of the federation.

If Parks was the spark behind the growth of wheelchair tennis since its inception, De Lange has been the catalyst. Now Team Lead of the ITF’s Wheelchair Tennis department, De Lange was the entire team when she first joined the federation back in 1991. “I had a desk and a telephone, and nothing else,” she recalls. “There were no files, and no one really telling me what to do. Brad kept on saying, ‘I'm sure you're doing a great job,’ but he was in the States and I was in London.

“I made a list of things to do – contact all the national associations to tell them that the ITF is taking care of wheelchair tennis; start up a ranking; make sure that you've got a little calendar; and start to promote game development. I very well remember one time when I was working on one of the last items on my list, and I thought, ‘Once I've done this, I don't know what to do anymore.’ Luckily, that moment never arrived.”

It was her own experience as a wheelchair tennis player that informed her strategy, and her infectious energy which set those ideas in motion. She talks with glee at the memory of attending Annual General Meetings with a mission to take the sport to more nations. Her pitch was simple: “I stopped everybody there and said, ‘Where you come from? Oh, do you have wheelchair tennis in your country? No? Then you've got to talk to me!’ And I would tell them what to do,” she said. “Without the ITF, we wouldn't have been able to reach these new nations.”

'I remember one time when I was working on one of the last items on my list, and I thought, "Once I've done this, I don't know what to do anymore." Luckily, that that moment never arrived'

Today, wheelchair tennis has established itself in almost 100 of the 210 member nations of the ITF. A cursory glance at the current rankings shows just how far the sport has spread – among the top 10 of the men’s, women’s and quad divisions are players from the likes of Japan, Argentina, South Africa, China, Brazil and Colombia alongside the established Grand Slam nations, and of course the Netherlands. All three divisions have earned Grand Slam status at the four majors, while the sport has established itself as a leading event within the Paralympic Movement.

De Lange was also instrumental in introducing the missing link in her own development as a player: a junior programme. “I always wanted to play tennis as a junior, and there was no wheelchair tennis. So in in the mid-1990s I introduced the first international junior camp. It ran alongside the French Open, and involved just a few countries – the Netherlands, Great Britain, France, and maybe only a handful more brought some juniors, including Esther Vergeer. We had some coaches practising with them in the morning, then they had their matches, and at the same time they were interacting with the big tournament. That formula worked very well.

“Our Junior Programme has been going from strength to strength. Today there is the Cruyff Foundation, who for the last 15 years have been amazing in helping us to further the growth of junior tennis – without their support, our junior and development programme would not be where it is today. Compared to many other disability sports, I think one reason why wheelchair tennis has been so successful is that we’ve got these great kids coming through onto the main tour. Most of these players, including Shingo Kunieda, have all been part of our junior programme. That's one thing that I'm really proud of.”

De Lange credits the ITF infrastructure for expanding the sport’s reach, but also pays tribute to the role of BNP Paribas, UNIQLO, and original sponsor NEC, who have been loyal to the sport for almost 30 years. “When NEC came on board in 1991 it was huge, as a disability sport, to get such a big sponsor. It was just amazing how quickly we could move the sport onto the next level.

“BNP Paribas’ role as title sponsor of the World Team Cup – in line with their support of Fed Cup and previously Davis Cup – has helped the team event grow to the point where we have four qualification events leading into the World Group event.

“And UNIQLO have given us the opportunity to do even more for the players. They believe in wheelchair tennis, adding Shingo and Gordon Reid to their ambassador team alongside Roger Federer and Kei Nishikori.”

“It's funny – the funding is what keeps you going, but in the beginning the sponsors’ expectations weren’t very high. Today, they are expecting more and more. They see that we have a good product and they want us to show that it's worth investing their money in wheelchair tennis. And that has helped us to professionalise the sport. We need to now take those next steps and hopefully attract further interest from not only other international sponsors, but also sponsors on both a local level and a national level.”

'After a few games you forget the wheelchairs. It's almost more than tennis – it’s more like playing chess on the court, as when you're not so fast, you have to be very clever with the ball'

As far as wheelchair tennis has come in the past three decades, for De Lange the hard work will continue in order to push it on to that next level. Increasing professionalism on the tour and further collaboration and integration with the Grand Slam and other high-profile events could prompt moves to revamp the circuit to prevent frequent surface switches in favour of clay, hard court and grass seasons along the lines of the ATP and WTA Tours.

“It is a challenge, because sometimes we are depending on tournaments who have a cluster of volunteers, and often a hotel which gives good rates during certain periods, but not when we want the tournament to move to the high season. We want to keep all the support we can from these people who have been working tirelessly to get us where we are today.

“Another challenge, of course, is classification. It is the foundation of para-sport and we are committed to enhancing the system for wheelchair tennis to make sure it is as sport-specific and fair as it can be.

“Media coverage is improving, but we could go further. A lot of people hear about wheelchair tennis and think, ‘Oh, it’s can’t be anything, it can’t be fast or entertaining,’ so they may not be so inclined to go and watch it. But once they watch, once they see our top players – see Shingo play, Gordon or Gustavo, Diede or Dylan, it's so exciting. After a few games you forget the wheelchairs as they are so talented and skilled. It's almost more than tennis – it’s more like playing chess on the court, as when you're not so fast, so you have to be very clever with the ball. I hope that we can get more interest from spectators and the media, to maybe get more televised events or live streams to grow the game even further.

“But the number one challenge is to make sure the sport continues to grow. We have had those luxury years where we made big steps, because we didn't have so many nations who were part of the programme. The great support of Kosmos has helped us to reach out even further with our development programmes and introduce the sport to a continuous growing number of people. We have more nations now, so now we need to make sure that we get more players from developing nations. Our junior programme has been great, and I have to say the same about our development programme, which is reflected in the rankings. We need to make sure that we can continue these programmes and that we can create opportunities in these nations.

“Right now, even as a recreational player, at a certain level you have to travel the world to play at a high level. Ideally a player would compete locally, then nationally, then maybe within their region, rather than having to travel the world so soon into their development. Hopefully we will succeed in creating more opportunities at the lower level for recreational players.”

'If only I could do it all over again with all that’s available now – the money, national association support, and playing at the Grand Slams. I would have loved to see where I would get these days!'

It’s a long list, as always – just the way De Lange likes it as she prepares to devote her energy to the cause once more, as wheelchair tennis readies itself to return from the COVID-19 lockdown.

For all her achievements as the driving force behind the sport’s continuing growth, one question lingers: does she have any regrets about giving up the game in her prime? No, she says – but she would love to be a member of the current crop.

“I really loved playing, but at that time it was way more complicated to play, to travel, and especially to get funding. The other day I said to Brad, if only I could do it all over again with all that’s available now – the money, compared to what it was; national associations are supporting it, which at the time when I was playing wasn't the case; we’re playing at the Grand Slams; and there's so much more respect for the sport. I really would have loved to see where I would get these days.

“But at the same time, when I started travelling and introducing wheelchair tennis, I got such a boost from all these new countries getting involved. Players would come up to me and be so thankful, and we hear stories from developing nations, from people who thought there was nothing for them anymore, and then through playing sports – in our case, tennis – they had something to go for. That gives me a lot of pride. It's different, but it's been worthwhile. To see what we have today, it's really exciting.”