Discover Greensboro Fall 2022

Parks &Recreation Sponsors Adaptive Standing Tennis Tournament! This fall Greensboro Parks and Recreation and local tennis associations will host the Carolinas Standing Tennis Tournament. First-time players and spectators are invited to attend to participate or watch. The tournament will be held October 7-9. A youth clinic, to introduce children to the sport, will be held at 4 pm, Saturday, October 8. Registration is now open for individuals with physical impairments who would like to compete in the game or try to children’s clinic. No experience is necessary to participate. “If there is an adaptive tennis player out there who is not aware of this, we would

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love to be able to introduce this to them,” said Susan Brodeur, Community Tennis Director and Piedmont local league coordinator for the Guilford Regional Tennis Association (GRETA). Local tennis player John Hizer’s passion for competitive adaptive standing tennis sparked the idea for the tournament. Hizer, a Greensboro resident, has been an above the knee amputee since he was a teenager and was injured in a car accident. He’d been a three-sport athlete. “For the longest time I struggled with trying to find stuff I could do sports-wise,” he said. “I was racing ATVs after I lost my leg. I was racing jet skis after I lost my leg. But it wasn’t the same.” A few years ago he started playing tennis to support his daughter Josslyn, 11, who was learning the sport. He loved it. “Tennis to me is so much more fun and so much more rewarding. I see guys that are 80 years old and they are still playing,” he said. Adaptive tennis is similar to the traditional game with some modifications. Changes may include using a prosthetic device or smaller courts, or a modification to the length of the match. Sometimes rules may be altered, such as to allow two bounces of a ball before a player must return it. Players are categorized based on their abilities. Hizer started playing tournaments around the country and soon found there is a great comradery among athletes in this growing sport.

C.A.S.T. Tournament

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