By his own admission, John Noakes ‘stumbled across’ wheelchair tennnis, but he has gone on to make an invaluable contribution to the sport since moving from Great Britain to the Netherlands, in 1978, to take up a full-time coaching position.

With pupils including future Wimbledon champion Richard Krajicek and future Roland Garros finalist Martin Verkerk, Noakes also began working with National youth player Chantal Vandierendock in 1979. Four years later, aged 18, Vandierendonck was inured in a car accident and so began a chain of events that would see coach and player both become intrinsically linked with wheelchair tennis’s debut in the Paralympic Games.

“In November 1984 Chantal gave a wheelchair tennis demonstration in the tennis hall where I had my tennis school,” says Noakes. “For 60 minutes she did not move in the wheelchair. She could only hit balls within her reach. These were good shots, as her technique was already made. After the demo I asked if she had enjoyed her able-bodied training with me. She said yes. I then asked her if she would like to try again with me, but I knew nothing about wheelchair tennis. That’s how we began.”

Such was the success of the renewed partnership that a year later Vandierendonck was at the top of the sport and would go on to become a five-time Paralympic medallist, three-time ITF World Champion and the first female wheelchair player to be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

Noakes went on to work with two more leading Dutchwomen – Monique Kalkman (nee Van Den Bosch) and Ellen de Lange - as well as the USA’s Randy Snow, ITF Men’s Wheelchair World Champion in 1991 and Paralympic champion in 1992.

Aside from succcess with his players on court, Noakes’s influence and work off court was paramount, starting with the European Wheelchair Tennis Federation (EWTF), of which he was the inaugural chairman in 1985, through to working tirelessly to aid the launch of the International Wheelchair Tennis Federation (IWTF) in 1988.

“The IWTF was the product of a meeting of minds of three people,” says Noakes. “Brad Parks, the founder of wheelchair tennis, who was running the sport in America, Graeme Watts in Australia and myself in Europe. We first met at the 1985 US Open Super Series and thought that one organisation would be the best way for the sport to progress and develop worldwide.

“Brad’s knowledge was much greater than Graeme’s and mine,” he adds. “At the 1987 US Open, with the support of Eve Kraft of the USTA and Doug MacCurdy of the ITF, we agreed to merge our three organisations to become the IWTF. Brad was the obvious choice to be President. Graeme Watts was to be Secretary and I was to be Treasurer and International Spokesman. In March 1988, the draft constitution and planning documents were circulated to all wheelchair tennis-playing countries.

The years of 1987 and 1988 were vital for the future of wheelchair tennis and its inclusion in the Paralympic Games.

“In 1987 I represented wheechair tennis on the Stoke Manderville Wheelchair Games Committee and the sport was part of the Stoke Mandeville Games for the first time,” says Noakes. “Also in 1987, our links with the ITF were becoming closer. The players wished to become a part of the ITF and not the various bodies for disability sport. Therefore, I met with the secretary of the ITF and convinced him to see wheelchair tennis as a division of the ITF, the same as juniors and veterans.

“I explained the only rule change necessary was the inclusion of the ‘Two Bounce Rule’. In 1988 the ITF Annual General  Meeting adopted the ‘Two Bounce Rule’ as part of the Rules of Tennis and so sanctioned the new sport.”

The IWTF was founded in October 1988 at a meeting during the US Open. The new body immediately started to form an international ranking system and a structure to sanction the ever-expanding circuit of tournaments, but the route to the Paralympics had already begun some months before.

“The majority of players wanted the sport to be part of the Paralympics.” says Noakes. “As I already represented wheelchair tennis on the Stoke Mandeville Committee, which organised international events outside Paralympic years, I offered to go to Stoke Mandeville to attend a meeting between that Committee and the representatives of the Seoul Paralympic Committee.

“They had already decided on the demontration sports for 1988 and there was no room for wheelchair tennis,” he continues. “But after a late night meeting I persuaded them to admit wheelchair tennis. The rest is history.”

Supported by the ITF and the Seoul Paralypic Committee, Noakes was appointed Technical Delegate for the demonstration event, which was contested by four men’s and four women’s players. Vandierendonck beat Van Den Bosch in the women’s singles final.

“It was my final contribution to the sport at that time,” says Noakes. “It really was the turning of a dream into reality. However, I was very tired after Seoul – emotionally, as much as anything – and decided to take a break from wheelchair tennis and focus on my tennis school.”

Noakes returned to wheelchair tennis in 2002 after a call from De Lange, to ask him to use his extensive experience and expertise to visit and set up a wheelchair tennis programme in South Africa as part of what was then the ITF Silver Fund – now the Wheelchair Tennis Development Fund.

“I worked with Holger Losch,” says Noakes. “The best thing I ever did in South Africa was, on behalf of the ITF, to appoint Holger to be the first chairman of Wheelchair Tennis South Africa. When I first arrived there were two players. Under Holger and his wife Karen this expanded to 600 people having lessons.”

Praised by Johann Koorts, then Chairman of Tennis South Africa, for his ‘never-ending enthusiasm and passion for wheelchair tennis’, Noakes remembers an early clinic in Soweto very well.

“I’d already discussed this idea with Holger, who thought that a wheelchair tennis demo had never been done in Soweto,” he says. “My driver and wheelchair tennis coaching pupil was a university graduate and high-level player called Siya. Holger thought that if I had Siya and his girlfriend with me, then I and Sonja Peters, then women’s singles world No. 2, should be safe.

“So we arrived at the Soweto tennis courts, but the gate was locked,” he continues. “Siya and his girlfriend disappeared and half an hour later returned with the keys. But we still had no pupils. A  couple of children saw us, our wheelchairs, tennis rackets and balls. They cautiously came onto the courts and had fun using our equipment and trying out the wheelchairs. Several more children heard the noise and also wanted to join in. They were followed by adults, mostly parents. We made them all very welcome and in about an hour we had over 100 people on the courts. We had a fun day and lots of people had their first wheelchair tennis experience.”

After his success in South Africa Noakes was asked by the ITF to visit in India in 2005 and 2006 and, in 2007 and 2008, as volunteer for a charity called Smiles, set up a wheelchair tennis programme in Northern Romania.

Noakes says that the inclusion of wheelchair tennis at the the Grand Slams was ‘another dream turned into reality’.

“The current standard of play, in all categories, has far supassed what I saw in 1984. It’s far beyond my wildest dreams,” he says. “The play, the coaching and the training are truly professional. So are the rewards for players and their coaches, unlike in my time: No pupil has ever paid me for a lesson or advice. I hope the training and opportunities for junior players continue to grow, as the juniors are the future of tennis and wheelchair tennis.”