Both visually impaired and totally blind people had the opportunity last weekend to try Blind Tennis out, and play in competition at Sunderland Tennis Centre run by the North East Visually Impaired Tennis Club.
People came from as far away as Manchester and Benjamin Green, from Nottingham, used this event as a run up to his first attempt at the National V.I Tournament in London on the 5-6th October.
They had various events to match the varying levels of visual impairments the players had. One event was for B1 (totally blind) players, with a few better sighted players using blind folds to even up the competition. The winner of this event was Peter Carling, with Elisne Lithgoe as runner up.
Another event was the LB2 competition for people with very little sight or very little mobility. Again to make it interesting they had VI tennis players using sim glasses which meant there was a lot of competition for everyone. The winner for LB2 event was Steve Trewick, with a very close Rosie Pybus as runner up. Benjamin Green from Nottingham came a very close 3rd.
They had one more event just for the B1 totally Blind and the LB2 with very little sight with Benjamin being victorious and second place going to Jean Whittaker from Manchester.
To run these events the club rely on sighted helpers, and thanks go to Emma Robson and coach Leslie Snaith.
The event went very well for the club’s first competition for people with no sight and very little sight, and like any good competition, it ended in the pub!