Dahnon Ward Case Study

hi everyone so today we're joined by dannon ward hi dana hi um and donna's going to tell us a little bit about his wheelchair tennis so danan i actually remember the first time that we got you to come and watch wheelchair tennis i think it was at the end of 2015 and you're only about 10 years old could you ever imagine how far you've come in five years um no i guess sort of like i started it um just for a bit of fun like once a week then by the end of the year i was sort of doing it you know two three more times a week and played my first time and just sort of went from there already so yeah i remember that tournament as well actually and your dad being so nervous um so in that five years you've obviously gone from hitting with your dad at your local tennis club and playing just once a week like you say to now you've been selected on the lta's wheelchair national age group performance program you're ranked number three in the entire world in the itf boys rankings and you've represented gb many times including world team cup and junior masters so after all that are you able to give me one stand out from all that time um i think watson called 2019 because um i think it was one of the lowest ranked teams there and uh yeah i didn't lose a singles much um yeah we lost in the final which is unfortunate so uh yeah still one of the best moments yeah so yeah that's pretty amazing and i guess was it one of the first times you've kind of traveled and stayed with a team and quite independent yeah yeah quite cool and so just getting back to when you were starting out how did the dan maskel tennis trust help you out it must have been a pretty big shock to your parents to suddenly be funding this tennis player who was going to loads of tournaments and going overseas yeah um yeah i think it definitely helped out a lot um especially with uh training and things like that and uh yeah so it definitely helped out yeah excellent and also the trust has funded a few team events that you've gone to so they funded a teen tennis finals in gloucester a few years ago and then they also did one last year when the school games didn't run and both of those events have been very social so i just kind of wanted to ask you about the social side of tennis for you um at the other players around your age are you friends with them do you keep in contact um yeah i'm friends with most people really um that are around the tournaments yeah i'm quite good friends with ben uh yeah we get on quite well so yeah excellent and do you think that's something um like one of the things that you really enjoy about tennis the friendships that you formed um yeah and also with that was like rivalry as well so yeah pushes you on to train harder so yeah yeah that's a great point actually cool um well dannon obviously the trust has funded quite a lot of our current professional players like alfie hewer lucy shuker louise andy laphthon so we're pretty excited to have added your name to that list actually well we've been talking to you we've been watching you playing against niels who's the world number one in juniors and we can see your talent on display there so it's been great to watch while talking to you um so thank you it was just a brief chat today but i think it's really important for people to understand how the trust has helped out so many people and how we can help lots of other people so we're just trying to spread that word so thank you very much and good luck with your future thank you