WREXHAM'S Tennis Centre is set to host the country’s best visually impaired tennis players at a national championships game.

A record entry of 65 players will compete for titles at the LTA’s Visually Impaired National Championships across four sight categories, B1 to B4/B5 – with B1 players having the greatest degree of sight loss.

Play gets underway this Friday, with the field including seven players from the Great Britain squad which secured a record medal-haul at June’s International Blind Tennis Tournament in Benidorm.

With ambitions of becoming a Paralympic sport in the future, visually impaired tennis is an adapted from the full court version of tennis and uses a smaller court marked out with lower nets and tactile lines.

It uses an audible ball so players can hear it bounce – depending on a player’s degree of sight loss they may have between one and three bounces of the ball before returning it back to their opponent.

Middlesbrough’s Rosie Pybus will be the player to beat in the B4/5 category, while Manchester’s Amanda Large is favourite in the B2 category, both players having won gold medals in Spain earlier this year.

Other GB players to look out for include Large’s training partner, James Currie, who won silver in Benidorm and Paul Ryb who won bronze.

Kirsty Thomson, LTA Tournament Director, said: “The Visually Impaired National Championships is highlight of our competition calendar and we’re really looking forward to bringing the event to Wrexham.

“Tennis is an adaptable and welcoming sport that can be played by anyone, with record numbers of disabled people now picking up a racket and enjoying playing.

"Visually impaired tennis is one of the fastest growing forms of disability sport and, with a strong social element, it is really thriving at the moment.

"The record number of players we have at this tournament is testament to that, and I wish everyone the best of luck for what promises to be a fitting climax to another great year."

Visually impaired tennis is part of the LTA’s Open Court programme, which is one of the biggest disability-specific sports development programmes in the country.

It supports over 500 venues across Britain to offer disability tennis sessions to their local community. More information can be found online at www.lta.org.uk/play-compete/getting-started.

Wrexham Tennis Centre is part of the network of community indoor tennis centres supported by the LTA, providing superb facilities for the local north east Wales community to get active.

This will be the first time a national visually impaired tennis event has been staged at the venue, but it has already hosted international wheelchair tennis and national junior competitions this year.