BEIJING -- Ready to serve, 10 feet behind the baseline, American Nick Taylor pinned the ball between the heel of one foot and the toe of the other. He lofted the ball into the air with a quick kick of his foot and whipped an underhand topspin serve deep into the service box.
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American wheelchair tennis player Nick Taylor returns a shot during men's singles wheelchair Tennis match at the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games on Sept.12, 2008. [Xinhua]
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The ball jumped high, and the return was short. Taylor scooted ahead in his motorized wheelchair and flattened out a forehand down the line for a winner.
Taylor, the third seed of the quad (quadriplegic) division of the Beijing Paralympic Games wheelchair tennis, serves underhanded because he essentially has no biceps and cannot lift the racquet above his head. He has inborn arthrogryposis, a congenital disorder characterized by muscle weakness and fibrosis.
The disease prohibited certain muscles from developing, leaving Taylor's arms and legs, among other muscles of his body, atrophied.
"I began playing since I was a kid. In the United States, we have school sports when we are in high school. Tennis was the best possibility to work (for me)," Taylor told a press conference on Saturday.
"I had to play against able-bodied people. No wheelchair players were playing high school tennis, so I didn't even know wheelchair tennis existed when I began.
"I take a lot of pride in it and I hopefully will help wheelchair tennis grow to some extent. I really hope it will continue to grow."
The 28-year-old, who has been playing tennis since he was 14, when he made the high school tennis squad in his native Wichita, Kansas, has a powerful, left-handed forehand. He executes the shot with torque rather than strength, generating racquet speed with his body to propel the ball with high-bouncing topspin.
It's a unique stroke, but emblematic of Taylor, who put full force and focus into his tennis. Those traits were honed by playing against his garage wall at home for hours upon hours because he desperately wanted to make his high school varsity tennis team.
Unlike other quad players who have disability in only three limbs making them able to wheel around with one hand, Taylor has to use a motorized chair to move on the court. With a video game-like joy stick in one hand, he drives the chair, swinging the racquet with the other.
Taylor's racquet is strapped to his left wrist with a cord-like device, and he grips the handle of the racquet backwards. He has to spend every changeover working to towel off his playing hand. It's evident that he works extremely hard to play the game he loves.
Playing under such a tough situation, Taylor paired his long-time friend and partner David Wagner to defend their Paralympic title in the doubles on Saturday and managed to reach the semifinals of the singles division. The Kansan's game is definitely more unorthodox than anybody else, but it is equally effective.
His unique kick serve, which is like circus sideshow, has been impressing all the spectators in the Beijing Olympic Green Tennis Centre.
"No one really taught the serving to me, I came up with it on my own. It was just a matter of necessity," he said.
"I hit the ball against a wall for hours and hours every day. At first someone would throw out the ball for me. Very quickly I couldn't find anyone to do that, so I had to find a way to do it on my own."
"It was actually by accident that I did it once. Then I went 'Oh, that worked!'. It progressed over time and I became more in control and better," Taylor added.
Earlier on Saturday, Taylor played against Wagner in one of the most absorbing matches of the day, in the singles bronze medal playoff. Both lost in the semifinals the previous day.
In the opening game of their match, Wagner quickly earned two break points as he forced Taylor deep behind the baseline. Wagner reeled off eight points in a row to take a 2-0 early lead.
Wagner, an athletic-looking guy with massive shoulders from Portland, Oregon, wheeled around the court in a conventional but specially equipped wheelchair with racing wheels.
"I think it helps and it hurts at the same time (being friends with Taylor). He knows where I'm going before I do and I know he's going before he does," said Wagner, the world number one quad singles player.
With two more breaks, Wagner raced to a 5-0 lead in the first set, finding fierce angles and half-volleying net approaches, and depriving Taylor of the advantage he gained from his high-arching shots. Wagner repeatedly drove the ball to Taylor's weaker wing, the backhand.
After dropping the opening set 6-2, Taylor succeeded in wheeling around his backhand to strike his preferred topspin forehands, which he sent bouncing high above Wagner's head at the baseline.
The tactic is similar to Rafael Nadal's strategy when playing Roger Federer on the clay at Roland Garros -- hit deep, high balls that force the opponent to return shots from above the shoulder.
Taylor stormed back in the second set, but still lost the match.
With a shiny gold medal in the doubles and a fourth place finish in the singles, Taylor should feel content with his performance.
"For the last four years the thing that kept me going was to come to the Paralympics in Beijing, and tennis has given me the opportunity to travel around the world, competing at a highly international level," he said.
