Four Americans compete at 2024 Para-Standing World Championships in Italy

This year's Para-Standing World Championships were historic for many reasons, and four Americans played an integral role in showcasing a fast-growing modality of tennis on the world stage. 

Para-standing tennis is a form of the sport in which amputees, and others with mobility issues, compete standing rather than seated in a wheelchair. It consists of four classifications, PST 1-4, each of which caters to players with varying physical and cognitive disabilities including those who have cerebral palsy, hemiplegia, spinal cord injuries, congenital conditions and short stature, or suffered a stroke. From its first recorded event in 2005 to the creation of a world tour a decade later, and showcase exhibitions at the world's biggest tennis tournaments including Wimbledon and the US Open, momentum for this modality of tennis has never been greater. 

But when more than 70 athletes—a record number—from countries around the world gathered in Turin, Italy to compete in June, it marked a new milestone. The competition was the first para-standing tennis event to be sanctioned by the International Tennis Federeration, the world governing body of tennis.

Texans Jeff Bourns and John Zavala as well as Kemit-Amon Lewis, originally from St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands but now living in Maryland, and Michigan’s Daniel Scrivano represented the red, while and blue at the competition. Scrivano left the tournament as champion in the PST 3-4 class, and each player shared how fortunate they were to be part of the game-changing grassroots movement that has brought more awareness to para-standing tennis.

Zavala says he’s found a new lease on life as an athlete through para-standing tennis after becoming an amputee more than six years ago. Immediately after returning home from competition, he reached out to a coach to schedule regular lessons.

“I thought life as an amputee meant I couldn’t compete anymore,” he says. Until now, I have felt left out of something I loved.