Ron Rosas has tennis in his blood – playing as a kid in El Paso, a star player at Notre Dame, then becoming a pro, raising a family of tennis players, and coaching others.

It all changed in 2023 when pneumonia progressed to sepsis shock and the decision was made to amputate all four limbs to save his life.

‘It initially was that I may lose just toes and fingers. um, and then that escalated from toes and fingers to, you know, full, full on legs and arms,” Rosas said.

A surgeon in Ohio saved the elbow joint in Rosas’ right arm, giving him hope he’d someday hold a racket again.

THE ROSAS FAMILYTHE ROSAS FAMILY

Prosthetics, including special attachments for his arm, put a racket back in his hand, and Rosas back on the court.

“I do have a tennis arm that’s been made for me. And what I do is I take this arm off, and it’s a whole different setup,” Rosas described. “There are attachments to where I attach the racket to. They’ve built it in where they have a rod on the handle part, and it attaches to the arm.”

Rosas has worked incredibly hard to learn to adapt to prosthetic arms and legs, regain strength, and build muscle. Now at 55, the tennis player returns to competition as a Wild Card selection at WC50 Québec. It marks the beginning of his pursuit of a wild card into the 2026 U.S. Open Quad Wheelchair Championships.

“This weekend is a return to competition, to a tennis tournament in a new fashion. I’m gonna be playing wheelchair tennis. And specifically, they have a quad division for wheelchair tennis, which is for people with limb deficiencies or limb differences,” Rosas said. “They do not allow power chairs. So I wouldn’t have an option to use anything motorized or powered. And manual is probably just more efficient for moving around a tennis court and getting to tennis balls. It’s definitely more challenging for somebody like myself with limb loss, but the goal is again, to show that it can be done and, and to bring more awareness and inclusion to the sport.”

Rosas is finding new purpose in the sport he loves, a new reason to win.

“To me, it’s been awesome, surreal to return to the court, and it’s just a little different the way somebody, again, with, you know, upper limb loss has to do it,” he said, “But again, my goal is to show that it can be done and can be done at a high level. And, so, I’m looking forward to this weekend.”

Rosas credits faith, family and friends and a mindset of gratitude for helping him rally to live life inspired.

“I mean, at the end of the day, you could look at it a couple of different ways. One, I was grateful I had survived this, you know, the horrible ordeal of sepsis, and I don’t know that I should actually be here,” he said. “I’m really blessed and fortunate and grateful to be here.”

In the game of life, it’s advantage, Ron Rosas.