Sheffield-based South Yorkshire Visually Impaired Tennis Club will compete in the upcoming S&D Centenary Senior Tournament as part of the club\u2019s exciting future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Janiece Wallace, 61, founder and secretary of the club, said the team will play an in-house tournament as part of the Hallamshire Tennis & Squash Club-hosted competition in July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SYVITC as they are also known, will be playing in Loughborough in April, as well as in Newcastle later in the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mrs Wallace said having visually impaired representation in tennis is vital to showing people with disabilities how much they are capable of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She said: \u201cI\u2019ve met lots of visually impaired people who wouldn\u2019t even dream about going for a run, going to the gym and playing tennis, because they don\u2019t believe they can do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy answer to that is there\u2019s nothing that you can\u2019t do, you can\u2019t tell me that you can\u2019t do something because you\u2019re visually impaired because I\u2019m going to tell you \u2018yes I can, watch me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n
Mrs Wallace won the Volunteer of the Year Award in the Yorkshire Lawn Tennis Association Awards last month, as her club bagged the Tennis for All Award celebrating diversity in the sport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having partially lost her sight five years ago, she set up the club in October 2021 after being inspired by the visually impaired tennis available at The Northumberland Club in Newcastle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She said: \u201cIt was brilliant, I thought it was amazing, I came away awe inspired and thought we needed to have something like this in Sheffield for visually impaired people.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SYVITC are supported by the Sheffield Royal Society for the Blind, who offer funding and their minibus to the club to transport players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mrs Wallace said their support makes tennis far more accessible to visually impaired players in the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She said: \u201cThe biggest problem for visually impaired people is transport, getting to and from places to play a sport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe are very lucky, I don\u2019t know anywhere else which has a local blind society which is that supportive. If you\u2019re visually impaired anywhere in this country, this is the place to be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The club gained members\u2019 club status in April 2022 having run taster sessions for five months with disability coach Ben Howarth, and they now have 24 members.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sheffield-based South Yorkshire Visually Impaired Tennis Club will compete in the upcoming S&D Centenary Senior Tournament as part of the club\u2019s exciting future. Janiece Wallace, 61, founder and secretary of the club, said the team will play an in-house tournament as part of the Hallamshire Tennis & Squash Club-hosted competition in July. SYVITC as they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":116,"featured_media":47409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,85],"tags":[853,854],"class_list":["post-47405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport","category-top-story-2","tag-tennis","tag-visually-impaired"],"yoast_head":"\n