MADRID, 23 Ene. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The ONCE Foundation has donated a total of four wheelchairs to the Royal Spanish Tennis Federation (RFET) with the aim of promoting sports practice among young people with disabilities who practice
this sport and in an initiative that is part of its project to promote grassroots sports, which has involved the donation of nearly 450 wheelchairs since its launch in 2017.
The award ceremony was held this Tuesday at the headquarters of the foundation's 'For Digital Talent' program and was attended by Miguel Díaz, president of the RFET, and José Luis Martínez Donoso, general director of the ONCE Foundation.
According to the ONCE Foundation, in Spain there are currently 25 specific wheelchair tennis schools, and tennis players can participate in any of the 14 national and 5 international tournaments they have on the Spanish circuit.
The tennis federation began a project in 2020 to promote this
sport among those who use wheelchairs and in three years 25 training and training centers have been opened. The objective is to have at least one school in each territorial federation.
Chair tennis, which is a sport included in the Paralympic Games programme, is played in more than 40 countries and has more than
15,000 practitioners worldwide. It is regulated by the Federation
Tennis International, which manages a world circuit with more than 160
international tournaments, including the four 'Grand Slam'.
Since the beginning of the program to promote grassroots sports, Fundación ONCE has supported wheelchair basketball schools, sports clubs and federations with the aim of promoting sports practice and grassroots sports in a way that guarantees generational change in each one of the sports specialties. Thus, wheelchairs have been donated to the Spanish Paralympic Committee (CPE), the Sports Federation of People with Physical Disabilities (FEDDF) and the Royal Spanish Handball Federation (RFEBM), among other entities.