Hi Maria,
Now there... is an interesting question!
I can think of one good reason, to be fair: namely, that this isn't like
goalball when anyone is allowed to wear shades and play, be they B1, or
fullly sighted, or anything in between. In B1 tennis, while we do have to
wear shades, we also have to be B1. As a result of allowing people with
much higher sight levels to play goalball, goalball players often have to
wear patches over their individual eyes (taped down, I believe!), and then
wear shades over that - all because, presumably, someone with a significant
amount of sight would be able to see around the shades, to some degree.
It's debatable whether having sight when not shaded gives someone an
advantage when playing B1 tennis. I'm not convinced, but some people feel
that being able to see the lines (or even the net) when adjusting your
shades can give you an advantage. On the other hand, being able to use
some sight during training could be a significant help, when it comes to
working on technique etc. with a sighted coach.
One thing to be aware of, though, is that B1 classifications are for life,
unlike other sight levels which have to be redone every 2 or 3 years or
so; if you regain some sight, it's your responsibility to let BBS know.
That means that you'll only have to pay that £18 once - or, if you already
have a B1 classification from the past from playing another sport, you
won't have to pay it at all.
Hope that helps to some extent...
Cheers,
Nikhil.
On Mon, 1 Feb 2016, Maria Oshodi wrote:
Hi guys,
Can anyone explain to me why as B1 players we need to pay £18 membership to
British Blind Sports to get an official sight categorisation to enter the
tennis regional tournaments, when we all have to wear blindfolds anyway that
block out any limited amount of vision we might have in order to level our
playing field?
This seems an extraordinary state of affairs, unless I'm missing something?
Look forward to hearing back from someone on this....
All the best
Maria
-----Original Message-----
From: b1-tennis-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:b1-tennis-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Peter Bosher
Sent: 07 October 2014 12:07
To: b1-tennis@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [b1-tennis] Re: NVITC 2014
Hi Nikhil and All,
Many thanks for that excellent summary. I knew that Kelly would give
you an interesting time.
Welcome Lara to the group. Lara is the only new person so far, so I
hope the message gets out as you say.
Re other B1 players, I only know of a few others in addition to the
twelve on the Metro list. There are two others at our club, Halton,
and another three or four scattered around, so probably twenty to
thirty altogether.
I'll let you know when others join the group, and perhaps then you
can say what other issues might have come up this weekend.
Best wishes to all,
Peter
At 17:37 06/10/2014, you wrote:
Hi all,
Just a quick update on the B1 section of this weekend's tournament.
We had a great turn-out: 11 B1 players (one player, Rebecca King, didn't
make it).
The singles was a knock-out format, with 6 players playing in a
qualification round to reduce the numbers to 8, followed by
quarter-finals.
The final was between Kelly Cronin and I. It was very, very tight, but
Kelly produced a fantastic, deep return at 5-5 in the tie-break (the first
bounce was about a yard in front of me, before it hit my body!), to take
the mini-break and set up championship point on her serve, which she
successfully served out. And all that despite feeling unwell during the
tournament - someone told me afterwards that she had gone quite red, and
looked like she was about to be sick! So, a fantastic performance from
her, and a well-deserved gold.
The 3rd place play-off was between Lara Green and Dawn Fradgley, who's from
the Isle of Wight and is completely new to tennis. Dawn was serving
amazingly consistently when I saw her in my semi-final against her (I only
won that tie-break 13-11!), and she went on to take 3rd place.
The singles happened on the Saturday, while the B1/sighted doubles was on
the Sunday, and used a different format: 3 single-tie-break sets, the first
two of which were sudden death if they reached 6-6. In addition, it was
done in three separate groups - a main draw consisting of 2 3-pair groups,
with the winner of each round-robin playing each other in the final; and a
plate competition with a round-robin of 4 pairs.
Once again, I came up against Kelly in the final: she was partnered with
Andy Crockett, and I with Jill King. Kelly and Andy won that one
comfortably, in straight sets (on sudden death in the first, and by a
single mini-break in the second).
So, that's the bare bones of it. There will be plenty of issues to discuss
following this tournament, both positive and negative, but it would
probably be best to wait until a few of the players from the tournament
have joined the list.
On that note, while I didn't attempt to give out detailed instructions for
joining this list during the weekend (with most people not having
note-takers etc. with them...), I did make a note of which club the players
were from, and made sure I had a way to get information to them afterwards.
I managed to cover all bar 2 in that way, or by exchanging contact details;
but Hugh Stirling (of the Tennis Foundation) is happy to pass on
information for us, so there will be no problem getting the details to all
of them.
Incidentally, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on just how many B1s
there are playing regularly now - in this country, that is. I think there
must be at least 20, but there could be more than that.
Cheers,
N.
--
*******
Peter Bosher,
Email: peter@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.soundlinks.com/
Tel': (+44) (0) 1494 794 797
Fax: (+44) (0) 1494 583 146
snail://
SoundLinks Limited,
43 Broadlands Avenue,
Chesham,
Bucks.
HP5 1AL
England.
