Ballina tennis coach at World Blind Sports Games

On Monday, Wesley O’Brien, a tennis coach at Killaloe-Ballina Tennis club, set out for Birmingham as Manager of Ireland’s first ever Blind and Visually Impaired Tennis team that will compete in the World Blind Sports Games that will take place from August 23 to 27. These Games, involving 1,250 athletes from 72 countries, worldwide, are held every four years and Wesley and his team are the only Irish representatives taking part. We wish them the best of luck throughout the week.

In June, Wesley, who is a proud Killaloe native, embarked on his ninth overseas humanitarian journey where with the organisation called ‘Happy Kids Poland’ he brought a week of tennis and fun to the orphans in the Garczyn Camp, south of Gdansk in Poland. This camp caters for up to 150 orphans, the majority of whom were Ukrainian orphans. He has previously visited Greece, Poland, Serbia, Bosnia and Turkey as part of his charity ‘Hit and Hope’.

Before travelling to Birmingham, Wesley provided a week-long coaching camp to 22 Ukrainian children who joined ten Irish children at the Killaloe-Ballina Tennis Club. Next month he plans to run a free six or 12-week coaching tennis camp for Ukrainian children in Killaloe. He also plans to take tennis to Bulgaria during the November mid-term break.