Visually impaired tennis has changed one man’s life

TENNIS is probably the sport that is least accommodating of the visually impaired.
But for the past year, one man from Aughagower has been determined to prove that assumption wrong.
Having only picked up the racket over a year ago, Vinnie Keane is already among a select few chosen to represent Ireland in visually impaired tennis.
By his own admission, Vinnie wasn’t much of a sportsman when he was younger.
He tried everything — football, soccer, handball, and even a bit of tennis, and he enjoyed it.
But the fact that he wore glasses did hold him back.
“That sort of thing would knock me down all the time…you were always the one of the last few picked in sports,” he said when he called into The Mayo News offices for a chat last week.
Back then, Vinnie suffered from short-sightedness as well as pink eye (conjunctivitis).
It wasn’t until the age of around 26 when his sight really began to deteriorate.
He first took heed of it when he went to the opticians to fix what he thought was a scratch on his glasses.
“The lady was looking at the glasses and she was going, ‘I’m sorry, but there’s no scratch on your glasses,’” recalled Vinnie.
Suspicion soon arose that he was suffering from juvenile glaucoma, a condition that causes vision to slowly deteriorate to the point of blindness.
This was not confirmed until some years later when all other potential ailments were ruled out.
It was a most unusual diagnosis for a man of his age, his ophthalmologist explained.
“You look like at 20-year-old, you’re really a 40-year-old, but when I look into your eyes, I’m looking at an 80-year-old,” is how Vinnie recalled his summation.
Today, despite four operations, Vinnie is completely blind in his left eye and suffers from tunnel vision in his right.
Here’s what that’s like.
“If you got up and my cousin, who sounds very much like you, could sit down, I could think I’m talking to Oisín. I’m not talking to, say, my cousin Paul or my cousin Sean, because right now ye all look the same build, same colour hair,” explained Vinnie.
“If you were all wearing the same colour clothes, I wouldn’t know who’s who unless I was talking to you for a few minutes. Then it would click, who I’m talking to. That’s the level of my vision.”
Naturally enough, the diagnosis has affected his employment, which involves looking at computer screens.
“I can’t do that for eight hours a day because I have to really concentrate to type and fill out forms. Doing the talking on the phone? No problem. It’s all paperwork is very difficult for me,” said Vinnie.
“So it puts unnecessary due stress on my eyes and over the years that makes me go blinder quicker by putting that extra pressure and stress on my eyes.”
Just over a year ago Vinnie got in touch with Vision Sports Ireland with the view of picking up a vision-impaired sport of some sort.
He went to a trial where he tried all kinds of sports, but he soon took to the tennis racquet.
The main difference in the game he plays, as opposed to the game played by Djokovic and Federer, is that the ball is lighter and jingles to make it easier to detect.
“At first, I was not good at all. They were there throwing me the ball, and I was closing my eyes trying to trap the ball,” admitted Vinnie.
That did not stop him falling ‘in love’ with the sport, and before he knew it, he was travelling from his Waterford home to Rosslare, Maynooth, Tramore and Shankill to compete with other visually impaired players.
Today, besides his racquet and balls, his most prized possession are his two Ireland jerseys; one green the other one white.
He clutched them both proudly before explaining what they mean to him.
“These two shirts, when I got them, I was nearly crying. This is like, to wear this green shirt, this white shirt, it’s very hard not to get emotional. Because this is like winning a gold medal to me,” he said before briefly losing his train of thought.
“It is a dream come true, and it is almost like someone pinch me. Is this real or am I dreaming?,” he added later.
None of this would be possible, he stresses, without the support of his wife, Lisa, who drives him everywhere.
He makes no bones about his biggest ambition, which is to win an international title in the green jersey.
In doing so, he’d be following in the footsteps of his sister Teresa, who won Olympic bronze and silver for Ireland in ten-pin bowling.
“Someday, hopefully I’ll be a world champion, hopefully I’ll be ranked number 1 in my category; that’s my aim,” he said.
“It might take years to achieve it. If I’m lucky I’ll do it this year or over the next few years but that’s my goal at the moment, so we’ll just have to watch this space and see how I get on.”
You heard him. Watch this space. 

SUPPORT
You can support the Irish blind and visually impaired tennis team at the World Blind Sports Games next month by clicking here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/g447n-irish-blind-and-visually-impaired-tennis-team