Tennis Coming to Oklahoma Special Olympics

For the first time in its history tennis will be offered as an official sport at the Oklahoma Special Olympics. It’s the culmination of a multi-year process to include the sport in the annual games and will be led by USTA Oklahoma Executive Director David Minihan. Minihan will serve as the Sports Director for Tennis after helping lead the effort to include the sport for 2023.

Athletes will have the chance to compete in a variety of adaptive tennis games, including an individual skills event, red ball singles, and orange ball doubles. There is also a unified doubles competition with teams comprised of one special Olympics athlete and an able-bodied teammate.

“We started this process back in 2020 in hopes of offering another opportunity to our many adaptive tennis players in both Oklahoma City and Tulsa, and around the state”, says Minihan. “I reached out Special Olympics Oklahoma and realized that if we were going to make this happen there was a lot of work to do in relation to creating the rules and guidelines. I’m so happy it’s all finally happening”.

Training sessions are now scheduled for coaches who would like to be certified for the upcoming games. The first session will be in Tulsa at LaFortune Park on January 21, with the second being held at Edmond Center Court on February 11. Minihan says the early response from coaches has been fantastic and there is still time for coaches to register by visiting https://www.sook.org/calendar.

The 2023 Oklahoma Special Olympics will be held on the campus of Oklahoma State University in Stillwater starting on May 17.