Plymouth’s Esperanza Merry was part of the GB gold medal winning junior team at the BNP Paribas World Team Cup in Turkey last week.
This was an amazing achievement for 12 year old Esperanza as she has only been playing wheelchair tennis for a short time. She won her first every wheelchair tennis match on the opening day of competition, defeating Tanazania’s Mohamed Juma 6-1, 6-0.
“I’m very happy to have won my first match as a wheelchair tennis player whilst representing my country,” said Merry. “ It was great playing with Alfie in the doubles and being able to play with a more experience player.”
Teammates Lauren Jones and Alfie Hewitt went on, defeating the USA and the Netherlands on the way to the final against Spain.
Esperanza who only received her specialised tennis wheelchair, funded by The Dan Maskell Tennis Trust & The Lord's Taverners, on 29th April, had spent a few days in the Netherlands training with Aad Zwaan, coach to world no. 1 Aniek Van Koot which was a great experience and very inspiring. She now looks on course to achieve her goal of playing for GB in the 2016 Rio Paralympics.