UNIQLO Next Gen quartet selected for Masters experience in Oss

Four young British wheelchair tennis players have been rewarded for their efforts at the recent UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Next Gen Development Programme clinic in London after being selected for a visit to the year-end NEC Wheelchair Singles Masters and ITF Wheelchair Doubles Masters in Oss the Netherlands.

Ellie Robertson, Ruben Harris, Lucas Town and Scarlett Walker were among 21 players who attended the UNIQLO Next Gen Clinic at the Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre, the home of the London 2012 Paralympic Tennis Event, where they shared time on-court time and received tips and advice from Shingo Kunieda and Gordon Reid.

UNIQLO Global Ambassadors Kunieda and Reid then answered a wide-ranging selection of questions from the young players, who were then assessed against a set of criteria that included their application on the day, their future potential and the players’ own summaries about their wheelchair tennis journeys, their ambitions and what the sport means to them.

With all the players currently part of the LTA’s Wheelchair Tennis National Age Group Programme or Development Squad, 17-year-old Ellie Robertson, who is currently No. 10 on the Cruyff Foundation Junior Wheelchair Tennis Rankings, stated her ambitions to ‘take my tennis further to Grand Slam and Paralympic level'.

Fifteen-year-old Ruben Harris, who has already represented Great Britain in the junior event at the BNP Paribas World Team Cup, also has ambitions to compete at the Grand Slams and the Paralympic Games in future, but in the short term he wants to ‘become a more confident and consistent player’ and ‘have enough ranking points to get to Tarbes’ (for the Cruyff Foundation Junior Masters).

Also aged 15, Lucas Town said he would ‘love to go to the Masters in Holland, as I have never been abroad to a competition. It would be amazing to see the quality of play there and obtain an insight into the structure of tournaments abroad’.

This year’s UNIQLO Wheelchair Tennis Next Gen Clinic fell on the 12-month anniversary of 12-year-old Scarlett Walker first picking up a racket to try wheelchair tennis. Scarlett, who hails from Norfolk, the same county as Alfie Hewett, Ben Bartram and Ruby Bishop, said:

“it was only two months after my operation that I first tried wheelchair tennis and I was so keen to get playing sport again. I was lucky and Ruby Bishop was there at my first session and gave me an idea of what I could achieve. Long term I want to play at the top level. At the moment, I want to learn the game, regularly play tournaments, and win as many as possible and work towards becoming the best GB girl.”

All four Brits selected for the visit to the Masters will spend three days in Oss to be inspired by the world’s top players and also to take part in another clinic alongside four young Dutch players, who will be selected in due course.