Ian Payne

Born with cerebral palsy, Ian began playing wheelchair tennis at the age of four in order to give himself more exercise and to help build up his strength and stamina. He competed in his first national tournament in Cardiff in 2007, aged 10 and in 2008 he finished third in the junior boys' singles at the National Wheelchair Tennis Championships, while also winning the junior doubles.

A year later Ian won the junior boys' singles at the 2009 National Championships. He was runner-up in the same event in 2010. He won the men's B Division doubles at the 2010 British Open in Nottingham and at the 2011 National Championships in Gloucester, where he was also runner-up in the men's B Division singles and runner-up in the junior boy's singles.

Whilst achieving what is still his career best junior world ranking of 29 in January 2009, Ian was selected to attend the Tennis Foundation ITF Junior Camp in Belgium in 2011. The same year he made his debut in the quad division.

Amongst his most notable results since the start of 2012, Ian was a semi-finalist in the quad singles and a finalist in the quad doubles at the North West Challenge, Britain's first world ranking event of the year. He went on to reach the quad singles quarter-finals at the Belgian Open in July 2012.

After working towards his GCSEs Ian was a finalist in the quad consolation singles at the British Open in July, his first tournament of 2013. That was the first of four tournaments Ian played in successive weeks this summer, culminating in him reaching his first ever quad singles main draw final at the ITF 2 Series Austrian Open in mid-August. He has subsequently reached a career best singles ranking of No. 26. Ian was a quarter-finalist in the quad singles and doubles at the Nottingham Indoor in October.

Ians started 2014 by reaching the quad consolation singles final at the North West Challenge, Britain's first international tournament of the year, and improved his career best quad doubles world ranking to No. 24 at the end of February after reaching the quad doubles final at the USN Bolton Arena Indoor.He made his Great Britain debut in the junior event at the 2014 BNP Paribas World Team Cup in the Netherlands in May, helping Britain to sixth place.

Ian won his first senior quad singles title and finished runner-up in the quad doubles with fellow Brit Richard Green at the German Open over the summer before winning the quad coonsolation singles at the Austrian Open. He ended 2014 by reaching the quad singles semi-finals and finishing runner-up in the quad doubles at the National Wheelchair Tennis Championships, as well as being named among the players to have qualified for the 2015 Junior Masters in France in January.

Since taking part in the Junior Masters, Ian has been concentrating on exams, but is due to return to competition in June 2015.

Biography up-to-date as of  June 2015

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Players on the Tennis Foundation's Wheelchair Tennis Performance Programme are supported byUK Sport funding.