Serving up hope! Tennis coach calls on Limerick people to show their generosity

A TENNIS coach is hoping his swing is enough to sway Limerick people to serve up their generosity in support of refugee camps overseas.

Several shirts signed by sporting superstars are up for grabs in a raffle, including Rafa Nadal, Usain Bolt, Rory McIlroy, Lewis Hamilton and a Franz Beckenbauer signed jersey.

Head coach at his native Killaloe Ballina Tennis Club Wesley O’ Brien paid his first visit to a Greek refugee camp in November, 2018, following contact with an enthusiastic NGO, Lighthouse Relief.

“Not a lot of the children there go to school, nor had they ever played tennis before. It was there that I truly realised sport brings people together.

“I am glad that I went for a week, but I am also sorry that I did. One week just wasn’t enough. It was heartbreaking coming home,” he told the Limerick Leader.

Endeared by the people he met at Ritsona, north of the capital, Wesley decided to return for a full month, this time better equipped, brandishing two full 18ft tennis nets as well as balls and rackets.

Painting a court in an open space provided within the camp, the Killaloe man gently guided residents through the basics of tennis, adding both form and fun to the workshops.

Since then, Wesley, who has 10 years’ experience at his home club, paid his final visit to a camp in Athens in January 2020 and has so far, been unable to return to his overseas work due to restrictions.

On the difference between his first and last visit, he intimated: “At first it was organised chaos in Ritsona. Their English is really poor and of course, my Arabic is non-existent. Tennis was our only real way of communicating.”

He admitted that when he first visited Ritsona, there were 800 people living there. On his last visit there were over 2,000, making it “a very different place.”

Due to working full time at the East Clare club, his trips are paid for out of his own pocket.

This year, he wanted to take things even further, and keen to save lives, he decided to raise funds for a defibrillator to be installed in a refugee camp in Greece.

Working with the head of an NGO run by an Irish woman, Wesley decided to write to the Rafa Nadal Foundation, enquiring if they would be interested in supporting his goal.

To his delight, they wrote back and promised to send over a signed shirt to bolster the drive for funds. Over time, he added to the collection of signed shirts, culminating in the ongoing raffle.

Since then, he has provided the defibrillator for the camp and is looking to sponsor his next refugee workshop as part of his Hit and Hope Tennis Foundation.

“This raffle has the potential to raise a lot of money for a good cause. I will be using some of the funds to sponsor my next workshop in a refugee camp in Turkey,” he explained.

He also added that the raffle will raise funds for the Access Tennis Foundation, run by Oli O’ Toole in Ireland, that helps bring tennis to underprivileged communities nationwide.

“What I do abroad she does in Ireland,” Wesley said, adding that he would love to make tennis workshops in refugee camps, a more permanent fixture.

“My main aim is to bring tennis to kids affected by war and conflict, in refugee camps and centres and schools,” he stated.

The raffle, which concludes with a draw on December 5, can be entered via accesstennisfoundation.ie.