Tennis player turns passion for game into spot on national team

Robbie Sanders is known throughout his sport.

He's conquered courts across the U.S. and Europe, earning him a reputation as a smart tennis player with good court coverage. All the while, he never lifted a foot to get to a ball.

For Sanders, who is paralyzed, the wheels of his sports chair do the moving.

Sanders, 31 of Cape Girardeau, has competed for more than 10 years in wheelchair tennis tours, and for much of the mid to late 1990s Sanders was one of the most feared performers in the quad division, which is reserved for athletes with three or more paralyzed body parts.

Sanders, invited recently to compete on the USA Tennis High Performance Wheelchair team, was No. 1 in the world rankings in doubles and was in the top five internationally in singles.

But after competing hard for years, Sanders took a leave from playing full-time on the tour to pursue a degree in administrative assistant management at Southeast Missouri State University after the 2000 season. He also now has a full-time job away from the sport.

"I just kind of left for a couple of years," Sanders said.

Despite hissuccess, including representing the United States in back-to-back World Team Cup competitions in New York and Paris in 1999 and 2000 respectively, Sanders had no plans to come back to the tour. So when Sanders received an e-mail asking him to be a part of the national team, he was surprised.

"It peaked my interest," Sanders said.

Doug Dupont, one of Sanders' hitting partners in St. Louis, said he wasn't surprised.

"He loves the game so much it keeps on sucking him back in," Dupont said.

Being picked for the team in late February meant a chance to train at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., for a week.

"It was awesome," Sanders said. "What a facility. It was just a huge honor."

Sanders' rise in the world of wheelchair athletics began after a car accident in 1989 left him without the use of his legs and partial paralysis in his hands. With surgeries and more than a year of his life spent going from one hospital to another, it was a chance encounter with a wheelchair tennis demonstration in his hospital that struck Sanders.

Still fitted with a halo brace, Sanders took the chance to hit with a racket, something he was familiar with and successful at before the accident. Once out of the hospital Sanders didn't immediately get into wheelchair tennis, but instead participated in wheelchair basketball at Southern Illinois University. It wasn't until his basketball coach helped Sanders find tournaments to compete in that his new career path presented itself.

"By him taking on the commitment to being one of the top players in the country, it's given him a lot of self confidence in life and in his game," Dupont said of Sanders.

Sanders also is one of 13 Americans competing for three spots on the Paralympic team that will compete in Athens, Greece, in 2004. He said the competition will be fierce for the final spots.

"To represent your country in a Paralympic experience is just an amazing thing," he said. "There's a lot of people that have a real desire to be there."

To be one of the three, Sanders knows that he will have to again compete regularly to have a chance. Sanders plans to compete at a tournament in Boca Raton, Fla., in late March and will travel to Baton Rouge, La., a couple of weeks later. Sanders also plans to attend the British and Belgian Opens later this year.

Dupont, who has been hitting with Sanders in St. Louis off and on for eight years, said Sanders may be a little rusty now, but he knows he'll be back in top form soon.

"When it comes to playing tennis he's very diligent," Dupont said. "He wants to practice hitting hard, and he wants to train hard."

Sanders is already on his way to climbing back to the top of his sport and is ranked in the top 30 after competing in only two events since his comeback.

"I think what makes him so successful is his concentration and his tennis game smarts," Dupont said.

Sanders reached the semis of a St. Louis tournament in which he defeated the No. 1 player in the world, and he reached the finals in Wichita, Kan., where he lost to the No. 1 player.

"No one wants to have to play me in the first round," Sanders said.

jjoffray@semissourian.com

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