By Michael Pavitt From Inside The Games

The International Tennis Federation (ITF) have held workshops in Trinidad and Tobago, Haiti and Cuba to help develop wheelchair tennis in the Caribbean.

Wheelchair tennis experts and coaches led the workshops in order to encourage players to take up the sport, while discussions were also held been Nationals Federations and National Paralympic Committees (NPC) on regarding how to plan and support the development of the sport in the future in the regions.

The events were made possible with funding from the Agitos Foundation’s 2014 Grant Support Programme, which aims to support the development of summer and winter Paralympic sports from grassroots to the elite level.

With their support, school and rehabilitation centres were set up in the Caribbean nations to help with the identification of potential athletes, while school programmes, regional development camps and national competitions were also held to help players on their path to international level competition.

Cuba’s Mercedes Gonzalez Amade has been one of the athletes to benefit, having attended a regional development camp with El Salvador and Guatemalan athletes.

She believes the programmes will help to increase the number of people playing in the region.

The ITF’s project to improve coaching in South America is set to receive funding from the 2015 Grant Support Programme

“For the time being, I am the only woman in the capital practicing the sport, but I know others will soon be joining me,” said Gonzalez Amade.

“Through the sport, I try to give my all and train my body and mind, proving to myself that nothing is too difficult when you have willpower.

“This is a new sport for our region and very few people practice it.”

Trinidad and Tobago’s school programme, set-up in January, has also garnered instant success as one of their junior players is now due become the first player from the Caribbean to take part in the Cruyff Foundation’s Americas Junior Camp.

Following the success of the workshops in the Caribbean, the ITF are now set to step up their bid to educate coaches in South America, with their project having been one of 31 applications to be granted funding as part of the 2015 edition of the Agitos Foundation’s Grant Support Programme.

As a result coach education clinics are set to be held throughout South America with the largest clinic due to be held after the Chilean Open next April and expected to include a range of on and off court activity.

The workshops took place with funding from the Agitos Foundation’s Grant Support Programme ©Agitos Foundation

IMAGE: The International Tennis Federation’s project to improve coaching in South America is set to receive funding from the Agitos Foundation’s 2015 Grant Support Programme ©ITF

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