Fifty years ago, Brad Parks rolled up to a tennis court in Indiana and noticed a sign that banned bikes and skateboards. The irony wasn't lost on him, his wheelchair's front wheels resembled a skateboard's, the rear ones a bicycle's. He had to dismantle the chair just to squeeze through the gate. But Parks wasn't the type to be deterred, because he had already fallen in love with a sport he was in the process of inventing.
Parks had been paralysed months earlier in a freestyle skiing accident in Utah, where he over-rotated on a backflip and landed hard on compacted snow at a competition. Recuperating in a hospital wheelchair during a family picnic, his father called him over to join a casual tennis hit. That moment sparked everything.
"I was in literally a hospital wheelchair... you couldn't really move very well but I could hit balls," Parks told BBC Sport. From that afternoon, he played nearly every day, with friends, family, and opponents his parents arranged. None of them were wheelchair users.
The real breakthrough came at a hospital check-up, where Parks met physiotherapist Jeff Minnebraker, who had independently been exploring wheelchair tennis possibilities. The two instantly connected, believing themselves to be the only people in the world playing the sport. Together they began experimenting, debating court dimensions, ball types, net heights, laying the groundwork for what would eventually reach Grand Slams and the Paralympic Games.
Wheelchair tennis at Wimbledon 2026 stands as a remarkable tribute to Parks' vision and persistence. Along the way, he even befriended Hollywood legend Gene Wilder through a shared love of the sport, a detail that perfectly captures the unlikely, extraordinary journey of this accidental pioneer.
TennisDraw users following the wheelchair draws at this year's Championships will be watching a sport with one of sport's most inspiring origin stories behind it.
