The Signs of Tennis

Tennis Pro Magazine May-June 94

For many tennis players, hearing the game's sounds are what makes it exciting, unique, intriguing, and challenging. The "ping" of the strings when the ball meets the sweet spot. The shoes squeaking on that quick change of direction in midcourt. Even the Monica Selesesque grunting.

But Brad Minns and Robbie Janes Carmichael don't fit into that category of player. They have a different perspective.

Brad, a USPTR instructor from Apopka, Florida, and Robbie Janes, a USPTR associate instructor from Washington, D.C., are deaf.

Brad has been a USPTR member since 1989 and Robbie Jane since 1986.

Both are members of the United States Deaf Tennis Association (USDTA), which is sending a team to play in an international team tennis tournament in Munich Germany this summer.

The tournament, scheduled to be played July 13-17, 1994, is in celebration of Germany's 25th anniversary of its national tennis federation and 10 nations are expected to participate. This is the inaugural invitation for the United States team.

The USDTA is a member of the American Athletic Association of the Deaf (AAAD), an organization recognized by the United States Olympic Committee (USOC).

The AAAD, founded in 1945, is the oldest sports organization for disabled persons in the nation. The AAAD provides year-round sports and recreation opportunities to persons with hearing impairments.

Its primary mission is to send the tennis team abroad to use the team members' skills more competitively on the international level and for maintaining relations with the European teams. The men's team consists of Brad (the USA's #1 deaf tennis player), Zachary White, Jeff Ploederi and Jamie McElfresh. The women's team is comprised of Robbie Janes, Mary Reily (the USA's top female player), Paige Stringer and a player to be named later.

The team will travel to Germany July 8, and will practice with various clubs before the tournament commences July 13. The squad returns to the USA July 18.

According to Brad, "The USA has players capable of helping to claim both men's and women's team championships".

The tournament is played on a two singles and one doubles format and will utilize a round robin format to qualify teams teams for the championship round.

The game is played exactly the same as with people who can hear, but hand signals are used to give all scores and line calls.

The list of accomplishments Brad and Robbie Jane bring to the international competition is impressive.

Brad, who has been deaf since age 3, is the USA's #1 deaf tennis player and was the World Deaf Tennis Champion in 1985.

He played #1 singles and doubles at the University of Toledo in Ohio from 1984 to 1987, and was Toledo's 1986 Scholar Athlete of the Year.

He also was named the 1985 Providence Speech and Hearing Center Athlete of the Year. When Brad's not playing tennis, he's a professional fitness trainer and professional model.

Robbie Jane, deaf since birth, is a physical education instructor at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C., the world's only University for the Deaf.

She played for four years on the women's tennis team, and was captain for three of those years.

Robbie Jane, who previously coached the women's tennis team at Gallaudet, has also participated in several competitions at the World Games for the Deaf.

In addition to this summers tournament in Germany, Brad and Robbie Jane are planning to compete in the 18th World Games for the Deaf in Copenhagen, Denmark, in July 1997.

If they play to their capabilities, perhaps silence will be golden.  

 

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