JTCC makes "Tennis for Everybody" with adaptive tennis program

On this summer Saturday afternoon, 15-year-old Spencer Davis is very excited. A resident of McLean, Virginia, Davis is on his way back from Windsor, Canada, where he reached the finals of the consolation event at an ITF tournament. A resident of McLean, Virginia, Davis is a wheelchair tennis player. Once he gets home, Davis plans to “drill down my notes and figure out what went wrong, what I did well, and what can I learn from that.” As of August 4, his ITF junior wheelchair ranking was 18.

Fifty-seven-year-old Gary Boshoff is also excited. Boshoff is a Marine Corps veteran. Nearly a decade ago, Boshoff had a stroke. Doctors told him he would likely spend the rest of his life in a nursing home. “I couldn’t accept that,” said Boshoff. Known among his playing peers for wicked slices off both sides, Boshoff now plays tennis five days a week, including work as an instructor.

Davis and Boshoff are just two of the more than 260 tennis players who participate in JTCC’s extensive and dynamic adaptive tennis program. Based in College Park, Maryland, JTCC is known to many as the training spot for such ATP and WTA pros as Frances Tiafoe, Hailey Baptiste, Robin Montgomery, and Denis Kudla. But that’s only part of the JTCC mix. As this training center’s tagline goes, “Tennis for Everybody.”

When you say ‘tennis for everybody,’ you better include everybody. Gabby Hesse, head of wheelchair and adaptive tennis at JTCC.

“When you say ‘tennis for everybody,’ you better include everybody,” said Gabby Hesse, head of wheelchair and adaptive tennis at JTCC. JTCC’s commitment to adaptive tennis began in 2018. It accelerated in 2021, when JTCC began to work even more to build partnerships, bring in recreational therapists, and expand the scope of its adaptive efforts. JTCC adaptive programs are available for wheelchair players, para standing, Special Olympics, and veterans.

Hesse first gained an affinity for wheelchair tennis while lettering at Florida Southern. One of the team’s coaches was Paul Walker, a USTA national coach for wheelchair tennis. “He’s still a wonderful mentor for me,” said Hesse, who last month had Walker run a junior camp at JTCC. “He showed me what was possible for someone in a wheelchair.”

JTCC’s teaching approach is exceptionally personal. “We want to get to know the person, the player outside of the sport, as a human being,” said Hesse. “And that’s especially critical when teaching adaptive tennis, because there is information about their disability that you need to know in order to best serve them. . .

“There’s this idea in adaptive tennis called reciprocal mentorship, where you as the tennis coach are obviously responsible for teaching the player tennis, but the player is responsible for teaching you about themselves and where they’re starting from, what their level of function is and what their goals are, and you can’t really do anything until you have that open conversation.”

Born with spinal bifada, Davis began to play tennis five years ago. He subsequently found himself even more motivated in 2022 when he watched fellow JTCC player Tiafoe reach the semis of the US Open.

“I remember thinking that looks really cool,” Davis said in an article on the JTCC website. “So, I did some research and realized that with wheelchair tennis, you can also compete in Grand Slams, high profile events, and junior tournaments, and I wanted to do that too.”

When it comes to competing, Davis prides himself on his consistency and ability to keep the ball in play. As he improves, Davis is working on becoming more aggressive. When he isn’t playing tennis, Davis also greatly enjoys studying history. One of his heroes is Winston Churchill, the British political leader renowned for his persistence.

It took Boshoff three years to learn how to walk again. Around that time, he heard about a tennis program for wounded warriors. As Boshoff recalled, “I walked into the court with my cane, and when I got on to the court, [the instructor] took my cane and handed me a tennis racquet. I couldn’t even take one step to the ball. So, if the ball was too far away from me, I let it go. If it was close enough to me, I hit it back. Soon, I started to take one or two steps.”

Brad Evans was JTCC’s first wheelchair player back in 2018. Evans works as a police dispatcher. “Traffic, domestics, accidents, you name it,” he said several years ago in a story that appeared on a Baltimore-based TV station. “I can relate to some of the people who have been involved, because I’ve been in an accident.” A 1997 car crash left Evans paralyzed from the chest down. He soon discovered tennis and swiftly fell in love with the game.

“Once I realized I could do tennis,” said Evans, “it opened up that, if I can do tennis, there’s more that I can do.” In addition to his full-time job, Evans is an adaptive tennis associate at JTCC, on most weekends coaching juniors, adults, and adaptive players. “He brings great energy,” said Hesse. “He just creates a welcoming and inclusive atmosphere for everyone that comes on the tennis court.”

That communal aspect is an essential part of the JTCC’s adaptive community, largely because etiquette is baked into the learning plan. Said Hesse, “We spend a lot of time talking about how tennis can also develop skills like responsibility and sportsmanship and all those things tennis helps off the court.”

As Davis noted about the wheelchair tournaments he competes in, “It’s a smaller community, so if word goes out that someone doesn’t make good calls, that spreads quickly.” To a great degree, adaptive tennis communities such as the one at JTCC showcase tennis’ best aspects. As Boshoff said, “JTCC saved my life . . . tennis has given me a reason to want to live and to want to be better.”

In the days leading up to the US Open Wheelchair Championships, the JTCC hosted the JTCC 2025 Wheelchair Champions, an event that featured an ITF Level 2 pro tournament offering $22,000 in prize money, a USTA Level 2 amateur competition, and an ITF Level 2 junior tournament. Pondering the future of JTCC’s adaptive effort, Hesse believes, “The sky is the limit . . . creating access for people is as big priority.”