Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid playing wheelchair tennis doubles
Wheelchair Tennis

Wheelchair Tennis

Introduction

Wheelchair tennis at the Paralympic Games follows Olympic tennis rules, with a few important differences.

The most significant difference is the ‘two-bounce rule’, which means a player can allow the ball to bounce twice and must return it before a third bounce. The second bounce can be inside or outside the court boundaries.

Sport Details

The Rules

At the serve, the server must be in a stationary position before serving the ball, but is allowed one push of the wheelchair before striking the ball.

Matches are the best of three sets, with a tie-break settling each set as required.

The wheelchair tennis competition consists of six medal events: men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles, quad singles and quad doubles.

Each nation may enter a maximum of four men into men’s singles, four women into women’s singles and a maximum of three quad players in the quad singles. A maximum of four men and four women may compete as teams in men’s and women’s doubles and a maximum of two players may compete as a team in the quad doubles.

Eligible Impairments: athetosis, ataxia, hypertonia, impaired muscle power, impaired passive range of motion, leg length difference, limb deficiency.

Description: wheelchair tennis is for athletes with physical impairment of the lower limbs, though athletes may also have an upper limb impairment. Athletes with all impairment types compete together. There are two Sport Classes.

Sport Class structure: 

  • Open: for athletes with physical impairment of one or both lower limbs.
  • Quad: for athletes with significant additional impairment of one or both upper limbs.

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