Tennis

Like mainstream tennis, Special Olympics tennis gives athletes the opportunity to learn and perform a variety of skills that can be played throughout life. In addition to offering traditional singles and doubles events, Special Olympics offers individual skills competition to allow athletes to train and compete in basic tennis skills. The development of these key skills is necessary prior to advancing to match play. These skills include forehand volley, backhand ground stroke, serve-deuce court, serve-advantage court and alternating ground stroke with movement.

Athletes can also participate in Unified Sports® doubles events. Special Olympics Unified Sports is a program that assigns Special Olympics athletes and athletes without intellectual disabilities (partners) to the same teams for training and competition. In Unified Sports tennis, a doubles team would consist of one Special Olympics athlete and one partner.

As in all Special Olympics sports, athletes are grouped in competition divisions according to ability level, age and gender.