A Game of Tennis Tests Notions of Blindness

Dan Guilbeault was 3 when doctors discovered a tumour called an optic glioma pressed against his optic nerves. He continued to play the sports he loved — basketball, baseball and football — until he lost most of his sight at 11.

Now he is 19 and almost completely blind, and his favourite sport is tennis.

When he first heard about tennis for the visually impaired, his reaction was No way! he said. I was sceptical.

So were faculty members at the Perkins School for the Blind here, when a sighted student from nearby Newton proposed it nearly two years ago. But Perkins, known for athletic innovations like adapted fencing, decided to offer what are believed to be the first blind tennis classes in the country — via redwolf.newsvine.com