The first time Alicia Molik played blind tennis, the former world No. 8 singles player found herself swinging at thin air.
Molik, who was wearing simulation glasses to block out her vision, last month faced off against Courtney Webeck and Mick Leigh, who are Australian champions in blind and low-vision tennis.
Players of blind tennis – which is also known as sound ball – generally use their hearing to locate a foam ball with a bell that tinkles when it bounces or is struck by a racket.
“I felt like a complete fish out of water,” Molik says. “It was quite unsettling, it made me realise I’m not so skilled at all. I have relied on my vision the whole time.”
The trio will return to the court as part of the Australian Open on January 23, for the first adults’ blind and low vision tennis exhibition at a Grand Slam event.
Molik says she is in awe of Webeck and Leigh, who were able to track and hit the ball and maintain a rally.
Alicia Molik was given tips by Australian blind tennis champions Mick Leigh and Courtney Webeck.
“I had to rely on every other sense that I think I hadn’t ever tapped into before,” she says. “It was actually really nice to have Courtney and Mick sharing their tips because I needed that, I wasn’t very good at it at all.”
Molik is an ambassador for Mastercard, which sponsors the Australian Open, and will announce a grant to help Blind Sports Australia grow the game at a grassroots level across Australia.
Just months after picking up a racket for the first time, Webeck, a 19-year-old from Gloucester in NSW, won the Australian B2 women’s title at the inaugural Australian Blind and Low Vision Championships at Melbourne Park last year.
Athletes are classified from B1, for those who have no functional vision and wear blindfolds during games, to B4, for those who have a small amount of sight. In the B1 and B2 games, up to three bounces are allowed, up to two bounces in B3 and up to one bounce in B4.
Blind tennis players Courtney Webeck and Mick Leigh.
“I’m a B2, which is one of the lower (classifications), with the least amount of sight,” says Webeck, who was born with vision impairment.
“I use my hearing to go, OK, it’s to the left, to the right, it’s closer, it’s a deeper shot. And then once it’s bounced … I can move in to hit the ball, and hopefully it makes a perfect shot across the net.”
Leigh, the Australian men’s B3 champion, was diagnosed with Usher syndrome, a rare genetic disease that affects both hearing and vision, when he was 30.
His hearing loss means that he can only just hear the ball and has to concentrate on tracking it using his tunnel vision.
Mick Leigh will play in an exhibition match during the Australian Open. Credit:Wolter Peeters
“I’ve got about 5 to 8 per cent (vision) which is not good. If I can see the player, I have to judge where he’s hitting it. It’s pretty hard, it’s a very tiring game in the mind too, because I have to concentrate a lot.”
Leigh would like to see blind tennis become an official Paralympic sport. “I think it’s great to see Mastercard jump on board to do this campaign, because it’s totally bringing us into the spotlight,” he says. “It’s a great game, I would love to see it recognised more on TV, like wheelchair tennis.”
Blind tennis was invented in Japan in 1984 by Takei Miyoshi, a 16-year-old blind high school student who dreamed of playing tennis.
In 1990, the first-ever tournament for the visually impaired was held in Japan. Miyoshi died in 2011, after falling in front of a train, but his legacy is a game that is now played in Europe, North America, Latin America, and across Asia-Pacific.
Blind Sports Australia CEO Matt Clayton said blind tennis was still in its infancy in Australia, where it had been played for about eight years, primarily in Victoria.
However, the game had taken off after the pandemic and was now the fastest-growing blind sport in the country.
“The great thing about it is you can pick up a racket and play in a local environment, rather than having to travel a long way,” he says.
With more than half a million Australians anticipated to have a vision impairment by 2030, Clayton believes the next area of growth for the game will be in regional areas, where there are fewer opportunities to play other blind sports.
“We know that a lot of people who are blind and visually impaired are still unaware of blind tennis,” he says.
“To be able to showcase it at the Australian Open is fantastic and we hope that it will show a lot of people what is possible.”
Watch the Australian Open live and free on the 9Network – Channel 9 and 9Gem.
