Above photo of the first Great Britain vision impaired tennis team
Nikhil Nair, Yvette Priestley, David Deas, Wendy Glasper, Chris Baily and Brenda Cassell are the first ever vision impaired players to represent Great Britain on the international stage.
original article by tennisfoundation
It was a highly successful second day for the B2 and B3 members of the Great Britain vision impaired tennis team on Tuesday with 11 wins out of 12 round-robin matches, including one walkover, in Spain.
Wendy Glasper reeled off four games in succession to beat Singapore’s Chris Tan 4-1, therefore recording the first ever victory for a female Great Britain player at international level in blind and vision impaired tennis.
Glasper had a tough time against Adrianna Sanchez in her second B2 women’s singles matches with the Mexican player winning 4-0. However, Glasper finished her opening day of international competition strongly, beating Ireland’s Claire Whelan 4-0.
Brenda Cassell had a super day, winning all three of her matches 4-0 to top her round-robin pool. Cassell defeated Rosion Demody of Ireland, Poland’s Kamila Wroblewska and Genemarie Richards of Australia.
David Deas followed suit in his B2 men’s singles pool, also winning all three of his round-robin matches without dropping a game. Deas beat Jonny McInerney of Ireland, Germany’s Dennis Scherer and Ju Sang Kim of South Korea to complete a fantastic day for Britain’s B2 players.
It was also a perfect day for Chris Baily in the B3 men’s singles after 4-0 victories against his two Australian opponents, Michael Fogarti and Adam Fayad.
Baily shook off a few errors in the opening game against Fayad to earn a comprehensive victory and top spot in his round-robin pool. Baily was scheduled to meet Candido Alessandro of Italy in his second match of the day, but Candido had to withdraw from the tournament due to injury.
After winning two of his three round-robin B1 men’s singles matches on Monday’s first day of play Nikhil Nair slipped to a narrow loss in his final pool contest against Alejandro Zacares of Spain.
Zacares made some important returns of serve towards the end of match to prevail 5-3.
There was another close finish to Yvette Priestley’s last B1 women’s singles pool match against Mexico’s Anna Arenas, with Arenas winning an exceptionally close contest 5-4(3).
