{"id":109598,"date":"2025-08-31T10:42:22","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T10:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/109598\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T10:42:22","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T10:42:22","slug":"learning-disability-tennis-player-achieves-wimbledon-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/109598\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning disability tennis player achieves Wimbledon dream"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rachel RussellBBC News, Yorkshire<\/p>\n

\"MATTHEWMATTHEW BROUGH<\/p>\n

Matthew Brough is set to keep competing after getting the chance to play at Wimbledon<\/p>\n

A tennis player with a learning disability has fulfilled a lifelong dream to compete on the courts at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n

Matthew Brough, from York, entered the Play Your Way To Wimbledon event at the famous All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club earlier this month.<\/p>\n

The 23-year-old has won gold and bronze medals at the Special Olympics and has represented Team GB.<\/p>\n

Matthew did not win any matches in his category but had a “fantastic experience” and will now take on new challenges, including running next year’s London Marathon.<\/p>\n

His father, Dave Brough, said: “Matthew has a learning disability and a speech and language disorder, so he finds things very difficult to learn and understand.<\/p>\n

“Tennis has done so much for him in terms of what he has been able to achieve, certainly over the last two or three years.<\/p>\n

“It’s been absolutely incredible what he’s been able to achieve and do.”<\/p>\n

Matthew currently trains at the University of York and is part of the Disability Tennis network group in the city, as well as the LTA’s Learning Disability squad.<\/p>\n

\"MATTHEWMATTHEW BROUGH<\/p>\n

Matthew Brough is a Special Olympics champion <\/p>\n

The latter role involves him visiting schools in York teaching young people how to achieve their goals.<\/p>\n

He has also been selected as one of the BBC’s Make a Difference finalists<\/a>, a competition to recognise those who improve lives in their communities, with the winners being announced next month.<\/p>\n

Mr Brough added that his son found it “fantastic” to play on the iconic grass courts at Wimbledon earlier this month after receiving an email asking him to take part.<\/p>\n

“We were super proud of him, it was a wonderful opportunity and a great experience for all the athletes that were playing there that weekend,” he said.<\/p>\n

Play Your Way To Wimbledon is a mass participation competition with tournaments for adults, juniors, para and wheelchair players, and those with learning disabilities, visual and hearing impairments.<\/p>\n

Participants compete in regional events for the chance to qualify for the national finals at Wimbledon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rachel RussellBBC News, Yorkshire MATTHEW BROUGH Matthew Brough is set to keep competing after getting the chance to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,82,593],"class_list":{"0":"post-109598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-tennis"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}