Phil Pratt will be at the Paralympics in Paris later this year, but it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine the highlight of his summer could have been playing at Wimbledon.
He is the man who captained Great Britain’s wheelchair basketball team to World Championship glory in 2018.
The 30-year-old Cardiff-born and raised athlete returned to the World Championships last year, where GB were runners-up, and he will be there again at the Paralympics in August.
But had life taken a different turn then his wheelchair could have been rolling out across the green lawns of Wimbledon in July, instead.
Phil may have had to learn his sporting skills from a sitting position since he was a small child, but that did not prevent him from trying a variety of sports.
“Back in the day when I was a kid, I tried loads of different sports – wheelchair tennis, wheelchair racing, sledge hockey, all kinds of different stuff,” he says.
“Wheelchair tennis was the first serious one for me. I had decent hand-eye coordination and I put a lot of hours into it.
“I can’t remember which for sure, but I got to either ranked second or third in the world for U18s. I was pretty good at it.”
Pretty good, but not good enough to overcome one big drawback. He didn’t like it.
Preference for team sport
“I didn’t enjoy it, really. You’re on your own with your coach and you’re doing the same limited number of drills.
“I think you have to really enjoy a sport to give it everything and I just found I got a lot more out of wheelchair basketball, which I was doing then as a side hobby.”
It wasn’t long before the sideshow became the main event.
As a team sport, he saw something in wheelchair basketball that had hooked him into watching football, a passion he still retains through his love for Cardiff City.
“I think I preferred the variety of basketball compared to tennis. You still do some drills, but the output is different in that no play is ever exactly the same as the last.
“I also liked the team aspect, compared to tennis. In basketball, you have to get the best out of not just yourself, but your teammates and your coach. It just felt like there was a lot more to it.”
