Guido Grassi – Smashing Down Walls in Racket Sports

Wheelchair squash player at Paris Squash 2024

We all know the physical demands of racketlon. Juggling four different disciplines in a single match, with often multiple matches in one day, is difficult…for able-bodied people. Guido Grassi manages all four in a wheelchair.

Following an accident playing rugby about six years ago, the Argentine now uses a wheelchair for most of his movements. Four around four years after this, he did not participate in sports, as he has all of his life, and was “super depressed” about the athletic void in his life. Since, in Lyon, France, he has rediscovered his love of sport with racket sports, finding ways of playing all four constituent sports (as well as padel and pickleball).

“I had an accident playing rugby in Asia six years ago,” he says. “And then I wasn’t able to do sports anymore. I’m most of the time in a wheelchair. When I moved to France, I talked to doctors to see if there was any solution and one of them told me, ‘look, you should start doing sports… you were a sportsman all your life.’ So then I started saying, ‘OK, what type of sport can you do?’ And I used to play squash especially. I had quite a good level.”

He had a challenge finding a club that would allow him to play due to wheel markings, or at least concerns around this, but then started playing tennis, then badminton at the Badminton Club of Lyon. Through this, he found Olivier Fronton, a university lecturer in physical education, who invited Guido to play with them at university.

Guido adds, “I ended up doing kind of, say, social work, getting to know the students at the uni. They organise a yearly kind of racketlon tournament and basically I was there playing with them, the only one in a wheelchair. So basically the concept was to say, ‘look, a disabled person can also play with able people’.”

Wheelchair tennis is by far the most developed of the four racketlon sports (indeed one of the most developed in terms of all sports). There has been a circuit since the 70s and they play Grand Slam events, as well as the Olympics, with some mainstream television coverage at the Slams. At last year’s Wimbledon, a total of one million pounds was handed out in the wheelchair and quad wheelchair events, a huge rise of 35.5 percent on the year before (the overall Wimbledon prize money increase was 11.9 percent), representing very positive moves forward.

Guido explains that wheelchair badminton has used tennis’ success to grow, being previously part of the Tennis Federation. However, he describes the situation as “frustrating” with squash, due to not so many (able-bodied) players playing and it being very difficult to find people to play against.

He adds, “When I say I play squash people look at me saying, like, ‘what are you? A martian?!’ I mean, what are you doing between four walls?!'”

Guido showed it is very much possible with an exhibition match at one of the most spectacular stages on the squash circuit recently – the historic Cirque d’Hiver Bouglione, the oldest active circus in the world and a renowned Parisian attraction, which hosted Paris Squash 2024, the first Platinum event of the current PSA season. (This is where the cover photo is taken.) He has been invited back for next season’s event, and hopes to bring a couple of players from other countries to see if they can do a mini tournament.

He hopes for the introduction of wheelchair racketlon (or racketlon ‘para’ or ‘handy’ – similar terms but not necessarily the same), whether as exhibition or a fully-fledged separate category, at least at the biggest events, to demonstrate the possibilities and power of wheelchair sport.

“When people tell me you cannot play sports in a wheelchair,” he explains. “I show you can. I mean, it’s difficult, but those are the kind of biases we have to break. And the only way to break them is the proof of concept, to say ‘look, we do it!'”

“There are a lot of people who are, let’s say, disabled since birth, but you have many more people who are after an accident or or something in life…How do you kind of create an environment for them to prevent depression, for the souls and for the healthcare system?

“Being in a wheelchair makes you more prone to diseases related to circulation; blood clotting. And so you’re more far more sedentary. So it’s also from a healthcare macro perspective to say ‘look, you get these people into activity into sports, meaning you get them healthier, you know’.

“You have no idea how much positive impact on mental health it has. After my accident, I was for four years not able to do sport and I was super depressed. Sport works on the mental health and mental recovery of people who are disabled. We need to put it on the agenda.”

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