Andy Lapthorne is part of the Tennis Foundation's Wheelchair Tennis Performance Programme and has been selected by the British Paralympic Association to represent ParalympicsGB at the London 2012 Paralympic Games. He will compete in the quad division at Eton Manor in the Olympic Park.
Home Town: Hammersmith
Lives: Eastcote, Middlesex
Trains: National Tennis Centre, Roehampton
Date Of Birth: 11/10/90
Games attended: Debut at London 2012
Andy took up Wheelchair Tennis after playing on the courts at his local park before being introduced to the sport through the Tennis Foundation's Wheelchair Tennis camps. He will make his Paralympic debut at London 2012.
Towards the end of 2008, Andy began competing in the quad division. In his first quad singles competition, at the 2008 Nottingham Indoor Tournament, Andy reached the semi-finals.
In 2009, his first full season, he succeeded in beating Beijing Paralympic silver medallist Johan Andersson of Sweden in the Quad Singles quarter-finals of the Florida Open, where Andy and Peter Norfolk also made a spectacular debut as a Doubles pairing when they defeated American two-time Paralympic quad doubles champions Nick Taylor and David Wagner before going on to win the title.
Additional career highlights include winning the 2011 and 2012 Australian Open quad doubles titles with Peter. Their victory in Australia in 2011 saw them become the first all-British pairing to win a Grand Slam Wheelchair Tennis Doubles title and subsequently took Andy to the world No. 1 quad doubles ranking for a period of several weeks.
Outside of Wheelchair Tennis, Andy supports West Ham United and Brentford FC.
Andy tells us how it feels to be just a few weeks away from his Paralympic debut.
"It's just all round excitement for me really," said Lapthorne, who is part of the Tennis Foundation's Wheelchair Tennis Performance Team.
"Four years of hard work will boil down to one week in my life but I feel like I'm ready, I'm where I want to be and playing as well as I ever have.
"At the moment I'm pretty relaxed and the nerves haven't kicked in, I just want to get going now.
"I've got the game to beat everyone in the draw, I just need to make sure I save one big performance when it matters most. "
Andy is also hoping to use the historic success of the Olympic athletes as an inspiration for gold.
"I've been glued to the television for the last couple of weeks," he said. "What Team GB has achieved is incredible and it definitely makes me want to do just as well.
"I hope the public get behind us because if get even half the crowds cheering us on it will be amazing. Their support could give me that extra few per cent I need to achieve my target."
For further information on Andy, visit the ParalympicsGB website.
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