It hasn’t taken teenager Ellen Tribley long to make massive strides within the junior wheelchair
Tennis world. Ellen, from Canterbury, was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at birth and only started playing just before the pandemic. But she won the girls’ tournament at the Wheelchair Tennis National Finals at Shrewsbury in December and reached the Semi-Final at last month’s International Tennis Federation Tournament in Bolton, as well as being victorious in the doubles with a Dutch player. “She started just before lockdown,” explained mum Lucy. “She hadn’t picked up a racket before, as far as I know, and hadn’t been self-propelling in a chair. “We visited Winchester Science Centre on holiday a couple of years in a row because the twins (Ellen and her sister Rose) loved it. They had a little track and a
basketball wheelchair that you could self-propel around the track in. “Then, there was a basketball ring and, with the ball, you had to time yourself going up the track and scoring a basket in the wheelchair. Well, Ellen got into it - and then wouldn’t get out of it! “There were queues of kids waiting and I was thinking ‘Ellen, get out now. Somebody else has got to have a go’ but she really loved that feeling of speed, movement and being able to turn. “Suddenly, she was much more fluent in everything that she was doing. So, she nagged me to find her some wheelchair sport locally. “I struggled at first. I found a basketball club, but the problem with that was with her catching - she was poor and the basketball just hit her in the face. “Then, we found this tennis club that runs at Polo Farm once a month on the last weekend of the month. “When she went along, they put her in a tennis chair. She picked up a racket for the first time and there was another boy there, Ruben Harris, who was playing. His mum was there and we thought it was great.” Ellen entered national tournaments across the
UK in 2023 in her first full year of competitions and also took part in an international competition in Lille, France, at the Open Hauts de
France tournament in January. Fifteen next month, Ellen had been training monthly at Polo Farm for around six months before the pandemic - but returned at the 2022 School Games. Lucy noted: “It’s like a mini Commonwealth Games for kids and she won a bronze medal in the girls’ doubles. “She came away really enthused. From that point on, it’s picked up from there. She just loves it.” Ellen trains around her GCSE and BTEC studies at the newly-formed Canterbury College (Junior College) for children with additional needs, coached by Will Carnegie and Nick Skelton. Her condition was caused by twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS), which occurs in the womb and only 10-15% of babies survive without treatment. It resulted in the loss of the right side of her hind brain which controls co-ordination, balance and mobility. Lucy said: “In her particular case, because of this thing called twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, that’s quite widely known about and there’s people who will have lost twins during the pregnancy to that. “During it, she was the twin who had too much blood and, although the scans at 20 weeks showed her brain developing normally, when eventually she did have an MRI at the age of three because she developed epilepsy, they found the whole right side of her hind brain was missing. It was just a fluid-filled space. “What they think happened was, even though the scan showed the brain developed normally, they reckon, after those scans, that the blood had clotted - effectively a stroke - and the blood clotted on that particular part of the brain. “Ellen has the right side missing and half of the joining bit that joins it to the left of it. She is very poorly coordinated and weak. “One of the big areas that she struggles with is the toss-up for the serve. She uses the racket left-handed - but you have to use your right hand to throw it up. One of her big battles is overcoming her erratic throw. “But one of her strong points in her game is her serve because she has a full-on serve.” Supporting Ellen is orthopaedic supports and braces brand Neo G. They provided her with complimentary products, including their active wrist support after Lucy contacted them. The relationship has flourished. Ellen gets funding from them. Ellen said: “I absolutely love playing wheelchair tennis but training can be tough, especially if I’m not wearing the right support for my wrist - which I use every time I play. “I’m really looking forward to the year and all the exciting tournaments, especially as I’m now using a wheelchair once used by Dana Mathewson, who won the
Wimbledon doubles in 2022. She’s my inspiration.”