Nick Taylor Starts Next Sports Adventure

He will also still be involved in the game of tennis as the tournament director at the $25,000 ITF World Tennis Tour event held in Wichita and will next put his competitive drive to use in a different sport: he hopes to head to the Paralympic Games in 2024 in the sport of boccia.

He recently got started on that quest when he participated at the 2021 World Boccia Americas Regional Championships in São Paulo, Brazil in early December. He took second place in his group to advance into the knockout stage before falling in the first knockout round.

While the jump from tennis to boccia may seem strange to some, Taylor says it was an easy next step for him. He’s been in contact with boccia officials in the past. The timeline just might differ based on who you ask.

“If you ask them, they’ve been recruiting me since I was a kid,” Taylor said. “They always kind of had their eyes on me, but they knew they weren’t really going to get me to do it when I was also playing tennis.”

These conversations helped plant the seed for Taylor’s life after tennis. Like any professional athlete, he knew his time in tennis had to start winding down eventually so he started entertaining the idea of boccia. While the transition may seem sudden to those on the outside, it’s been in the works for a few years.

“I actually started playing a couple of years ago, when I didn’t need to be at a tennis tournament, I was going to some boccia tournaments and stuff like that,” Taylor said. “I was actually able to move into that full-time pretty much immediately.”