Meet the GB Deaflympic Tennis Team

Find out more about the five players who have been selected to represent Great Britain at the 2013 Deaflympics in Sofia, Bulgaria.

Men's team

Jack Clifton
Jack started playing deaf tennis in 2007 after his mother contacted the Tennis Foundation and he attended his first deaf tennis training session before playing his first National Championships in 2008. Jack is a previous winner of the B Division Singles at the National Championships and has quickly progressed to the National Deaf Tennis Squad. He made his international debut in 2011 when representing Great Britain at the Dresse and Maere Cup in Austria. In 2012 he won his first international medal after claiming silver in the junior boys’ singles at the European Championships in Germany.
Lewis Fletcher
Lewis won his first men’s singles National title in 2012 and is a four-time men’s doubles and mixed doubles National champion. He was part of deaf tennis history in 2004 when he took part in the first deaf tennis exhibition match to be played at The Championships, Wimbledon. Lewis made his Deaflympics debut in Taipei in 2009, when he narrowly missed out on a bronze medal in the men’s doubles. He was a member of the GB men’s team that won the silver medal at the 2003 Dresse Cup, the deaf tennis event that is equivalent to the Davis Cup, and won bronze at last year's European Deaf Tennis Championships in the mixed doubles with wife Catherine Fletcher.
Peter Willcox
Eleven-time National men’s singles champion Peter has been selected for his second Deaflympics, having made his debut in Melbourne in 2005, where he was a men’s singles semi-finalist and a men’s doubles and mixed doubles quarter-finalist. Alongside Lewis Fletcher he was also a member of the GB men’s team that won the silver medal at the 2003 Dresse Cup. Peter’s international successes also include reaching the men’s doubles final at the British Open Deaf Tennis Championships in 2006. Like team mates Catherine and Lewis Fletcher, Peter has also worked as a tennis coach and has coached in the UK and the USA.

Women's Team

Bethany Brookes
Bethany is a three-time National women’s singles and doubles champion. In 2010 she completed a unique family double becoming women’s singles National champion for the first time, emulating her mother Fiona, who won the last of her four National women’s singles titles in in 1988. Bethany will again emulate her mother in Sofia when she makes her Deaflympics debut. Fiona is a two-time Deaflympian and this year mother and daughter will both be in Bulgiaria after Fiona was named as GB Chef de Mission for the 2013 Deaflympics. Bethany won gold in the girls’ singles and silver in the women’s doubles with Catherine Fletcher at the 2012 European Championships in Germany.
Catherine Fletcher
After making her international debut at the age of 12, Catherine will be playing in her fifth Deaflympics in Sofia, which will also be her first Deaflympics as GB National Deaf Tennis Coach for the Tennis Foundation. Since making her Deaflympics debut in 1997, Catherine has won medals for Great Britain in every major international deaf tennis competition including gold in the mixed doubles with Anthony Sinclair at the 2009 Deaflympics in Taipei. She was also a women’s doubles silver medallist in Melbourne in 2005. Catherine won bronze in the mixed doubles with husband Lewis Fletcher at the 2012 European Deaf Tennis Championships in Germany, where she also won silver with Bethany Brookes in the women’s doubles.