Foot Fault
Duration: 1 x 60'
Contact Sales Collection: SportThis insightful film tracks comedian Adam Hills’ global campaign to amplify the conversation around Para Standing Tennis as a Paralympic event.
Featuring contributions from players, advocates and officials, this documentary uncovers the untold barriers faced by aspiring Paralympians without the capacity or desire to play tennis in a wheelchair. Beyond recent encouraging experiments with exhibition matches, this is still a form of tennis that currently isn’t reflected through competitive ties in any of the major Grand Slam tournaments.
Even more staggering is that the Paralympics has no space, or apparent interest, in catering for a huge number of disabled athletes who experience their tennis this way. The fact remains that if you’re a disabled tennis player who plays standing up, your only chance of a Paralympic gold medal is to take to the court in a wheelchair.
Having not played properly in years, despite previously reaching coaching level, Adam will get stuck into some serious competition with those he meets, with the aim of becoming a World Champion himself. He'll have to work from scratch, honing his skills in preparation for competition in major global Para Standing Tennis competitions.
Adam will be doing all that he can to bring as many other people into the sport along the way as possible. There are disabled tennis players currently playing wheelchair tennis who Adam will convince to ditch their chairs and compete standing for the first time. For some this will be a revelation. We’ll hear their stories and find why this new form of tennis could change everything for them.
Looking to stage a big impact demonstration of Para Standing Tennis, Adam will aim to force the International Paralympic Committee to engage in dialogue about the sport becoming part of their games in future years.
Despite his can-do attitude there are mountains still to climb. When it comes to building the global profile of Para Standing Tennis, he has high hopes of being instrumental in both kickstarting the grassroots game in the UK and beyond, and gaining acceptance from the Grand Slam tournaments around the world. It won’t be easy but he’s determined to make a major dent in what’s required.
His end goal is simple: to make so much noise about Para Standing Tennis that it begins its journey to being ratified by the International Paralympic Committee and takes its place as an event in future games to come.
It wouldn't hurt to become World Champion along the way either!
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