Fostering diverse human resources

The competitive level of wheelchair tennis is relatively high compared with other sports for physically challenged people, and it is under the jurisdiction of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) that also governs regular tennis. There is an international wheelchair tennis tour and international rankings.

NEC sponsors the "NEC Wheelchair Tennis Tour" held by the ITF abroad since 1992, and the world championship "NEC Wheelchair Tennis Masters." since 1994. This year, 152 tournaments are held in 37 countries.

In Japan, NEC sponsors the "NEC All Japan Invitational Wheelchair Tennis Tournament" since 1991, jointly held by the Yoshida Memorial Tennis Training Center (TTC) and Japan Wheelchair Tennis Association (JWTA).

Shingo Kunieda playing in a match (Photo by the ITF, photographed by Akira Andoh)

Among some of these tournaments, employees of local NEC subsidiaries assist in the management of these tournaments throughout the world as part of the "Make-a-Difference Drive" that involves NEC Group employees in making contributions to their local communities. For example, as umpires, as interpreters, as staff for broadcast live on the Internet, ball chasers etc. In the other hands, local NEC loans PCs, printers, monitors, universal design copy and fax machine for some local tournaments.

NEC is also involved in popularizing the sport in Asia and holds "NEC JWTA Wheelchair Tennis Clinics" together with the JWTA so that children and novices can try the game. There are some countries that do not even have wheelchairs for sports, so used sports wheelchairs are donated to help popularize this sport.

These activities were started with the goal of promoting sports for the physically challenged and helping them to take part in society. Today, a Japanese player has won the grand slam, is ranked number one in the global rankings, and is the attention of the world.

Nowadays, a professional wheelchair tennis player Shingo Kunieda (Japan) is well known as the winner of the grand slam and the No.1 for the ITF’s world ranking.

NEC hopes that wheelchair tennis will continue to grow in the future.

NEC’s support for wheelchair tennis has been introduced in the educational article, "New Vision for Modern Society" in the high school textbook "Modern Society" (published by Hamashima Shoten). It is also introduced in the educational article, "Learning Civics in Tokyo" in the junior high school textbook "Civics" (published by Hamashima Shoten).