Blind and Visually Impaired (BVI) Tennis, also called Blind and Low Vision Tennis – with its signature belled balls – is booming, and last weekend it launched here in Southern California.

United States Blind Tennis Association (USBTA) was established in 2022 by former Highland Park Tennis Club President Dana Costa. Now USBTA President full-time, Costa’s goals are to continue to build programming across the country, create a pathway for competition, and eventually see blind tennis in the Paralympics.

I asked her what inspires her to keep going, on the harder days. She shared a story of a player with progressive vision loss, an avid athlete who went down a dark path emotionally as his vision deteriorated. His wife pushed him to try blind tennis and his face lit up when he first held a racquet. They now joke that he is so addicted that they are going to put him in Tennis Anonymous. Simply put, tennis saved his life.

Costa herself was inspired to start the organization when her own daughter, Domiana, who has low vision and is now 9 years old, wanted to play. Costa thought she’d create it herself, but quickly realized she didn’t have to.

Mioshi Takei, a blind Japanese athlete, developed the sport of Blind Tennis in 1984. Takei designed a ball that made a sound, raised lines so a player could feel, and lowered the net, among other adaptations. The International Blind Tennis Association (IBTA), the sport’s governing body, was established in 2014.

Costa reached out to some of the world leaders to learn more and kickstarted a pilot program with another blind sports organization in the Pittsburgh area. She then enlisted the help of Dilettuso, Head Pro at Highland Park Tennis Club, a USPTA Elite Pro for 47 years, and a USTA High Performance Coach for 22 years who has coached on both circuits. USBTA was born.

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Approaching the gym on the Wayfinder Family Services (formerly Junior Blind of America) campus, you hear the tennis before you see it. Tennis balls jingle and players’ voices echo. It’s Saturday, December 14th and Costa and Head Pro David Dilettuso joined Wayfinder Recreation Program Manager Annelie Du Plessis and her team and USTA Southern California’s Community Tennis Coordinator Bryan Hudson and Manager of Schools, Wheelchair & Adaptive Tennis Kevin Finkleberg, to bring BVI Tennis to our community.

In many ways, the event is like any other tennis event. Players rally on short courts, hit against the wall, and practice their serves. After the clinic, I caught up with some of the coaches and players to learn more.

Dilettuso explained to me the basics of BVI Tennis, and that it requires a lot of a teaching pro. First, respect for the competitors and the courage it takes to do something that no one thinks you can do. Second, language specificity and explaining rather than showing. You can’t say, “do it like this” and demonstrate or point, so as a pro you need to be much more specific with language when coaching. Third, redefining the concept of success. It may not be 9 out of 10 balls in the court. Success might be when your student turns to the correct side when they hear the ball coming.

The rules are a bit different, too. B1 (totally blind) players use a shorter court. B2 to B4 players (progressively more sighted) use a larger court and regular scoring. The court is 60 feet long instead of the standard 78 feet. Lines are put down 9 feet inside each baseline.

To start a point, the server announces, “Ready.” The receiver responds, “Yes.” The server then must say, “Play” before striking the ball. If they don’t, it’s a fault.

One player, who grew up in Tennessee and now lives in Compton, really enjoyed playing and hopes to play again. Others agreed. “It’s a lot more physical activity than I expected,” said Angel Valladares of Los Angeles, “but I like it. Good exercise.” Valladares used to play a little soccer and also practices jiujitsu. He especially appreciated the sound-adapted balls and being free of goggles. “I don’t have to use goggles, which is great. I don’t like wearing goggles.” (Black-out goggles are worn in most blind sports to level the playing field.)

“It was so special seeing so many excited faces ready to take on a new challenge and tackle a brand new sport with confidence and a positive attitude!” said Hudson of USTA SoCal.

Du Plessis has added tennis to Wayfinder’s recreation calendar for 2025, a schedule already packed with sports and activities, including goalball, soccer, baseball, tandem cycling, hiking, ski trips, deep sea fishing, river rafting, a holiday carnival, beeper egg hunt, and Camp Bloomfield, their biggest program. Du Plessis’s passion for the program and its participants is palpable. She left a successful digital marketing career for this work, inspired in part by her own mother’s impact-driven work in medicine, and hasn’t looked back.

While Wayfinder and USTA Southern California take the reins on growth here, Costa and Dilettuso are committed to continuing to scale BVI Tennis nationwide. To date, they have conducted successful trainings at Georgia School for the Blind and the Maryland School for the Blind, and have done activations and/or talks at the US Open, the USTA National Campus in Florida, and at facilities in Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and New York. They head to Arkansas in a few weeks. USTA Southern has been a leader in creating exposure for them across the South.

BVI Tennis in America has come a long way since Costa first approached Dilettuso about six years ago. As he tells it, she came to him one day and said, “Why can’t we teach tennis to blind people?” Dilettuso responded, “I don’t know. Why can’t we?” 

To learn more or get involved:

United States Blind Tennis Association
playtennis.usta.com/usbta

Wayfinder Family Services
wayfinderfamily.org/rec
@wayfinderfamily