Christmas 2025 - Newsletter

Greetings from our President Elaine Paige DBE

Hello everyone,

Welcome to our final newsletter of the year from the Dan Maskell Tennis Trust.

It’s been a fantastic year both personally, with the honour of receiving my Damehood from His Majesty the King, and also for the Trust, as we continue expanding our support for disabled people playing tennis.

I recently had the pleasure of attending two lunches for the Trust. The first followed our final Trustees’ meeting, where we celebrated all we’ve achieved together. The following week, I was delighted to be the special guest at the TIA UK Christmas Lunch, taking part in a Q&A with our Vice President Marcus Buckland a master auctioneer who helped raise even more funds for DMTT.  It’s always a privilege to play my part as President in the Trust’s ongoing success.

I’m also thrilled to welcome our newest Ambassador, Kristen Paskins, our first wheelchair padel player. Padel continues to grow, and it’s wonderful to see inclusivity at the heart of that progress. I’m also so impressed by Ruby Bishop and her inspiring campaign to make school PE more inclusive. We are so proud of you.

Plans for next year’s events are already underway, and I look forward to seeing many of you soon. Until then, I wish you a safe and Happy Christmas!  

Thank you, as always, for your incredible support.

With love,

Elaine's website

TIA Christmas Lunch

We were delighted to once again be named as the official charity of the Tennis Industry Association UK for 2025. At their recent Christmas Lunch, on Wednesday 3 December our President Dame Elaine Paige attended as a special guest and took part in a light-hearted interview about her career, her love of tennis and her recent investiture as a Dame with our Vice President Marcus Buckland. Marcus also took control of the auction, utilising his expert skills as an auctioneer, raising more than £1750 for the Trust! A big thank you to the TIA and everyone who bid in the auction, funds raised will go directly to disabled tennis players through our grant aid funding programme.

Our year in numbers 

2026 was a landmark year for the DMTT as it was the first year in our history that Grants approved exceeded £100K! To be exact, we approved just over £119,000 on over 140 grants covering more than 4500 disabled tennis players. This is an incredible achievement and we couldn’t have funded so much activity without the support of the LTA Tennis Foundation and the Wimbledon Foundation as well as everyone who attends our Golf Day, takes part in other fundraising initiatives or makes a direct donation – thank you so much!

Unique item up for sale

We have been gifted an amazing one-off unique canvas by the Wimbledon Foundation, signed by every player who took part in the 2024 Wimbledon Championships and want to raise as much money as we can for it.  It would look great on the wall at a tennis club, school, or office building or even as a bedspread for a young tennis fan! It measures 10 foot long x 6.5 foot wide. Anyone interested in making an offer over £750, please contact Gilly. 

Dates for 2026

We have already set the dates for two of our favourite events for 2026. Our Golf Day fundraiser will be moving venue, to the beautiful Sundridge Park Golf Club in Bromley and held on Wednesday 29 April. We are very excited to take our wonderful supporters to a new venue and have already had some great planning meetings with the very friendly staff.

Our Recreational Doubles Wheelchair tennis event will be returning to Oxstalls Sports Park in Gloucester and will be held on Saturday 9^th May and Sunday 10^th May. Entry information will be out soon.

New Ambassador - Kristen Paskins

We are delighted to announce Kristen Paskins as our newest Ambassador, and our first Padel playing Ambassador! Kristen applied to us in early 2025 for a Matsunaga T Max High Performance wheelchair and since then we have followed her success, and kept tabs on all her media and promotional appearances! You can read more about Kristen here.

LTA Nationals wrap up and enhanced Disability Calendar

The LTA has recently hosted National Finals in its disability specific competitions. It was great to see so many entries from players who we have supported. You can view the final results for each tournament here:

Learning Disability

Blind and Visually Impaired

Wheelchair

Deaf 

Also, it has been announced that there is to be a 'bigger and better' disability calendar in 2026. You can read more here.

Ruby Bishop's campaign to make school PE more inclusive

Ruby, who competes for Team GB in wheelchair tennis and has benefited from a grant from us in the past, is campaigning for Ruby’s Law, a national change that will:

* Make sports wheelchairs standard PE equipment in every school

* Train teachers in inclusive PE delivery

* Ensure disabled pupils participate, not spectate

* Use disability sport to educate ALL pupils about inclusion and equality

Please support Ruby through her social media channels to get this law passed and help support more school children play all sports, and particularly, tennis! Ruby recently appeared on BBC, you can watch here.

Office holiday closure

We will be closing the office from 24 Dec 2025 until 4 Jan 2026 (inclusive). On behalf of all of us at the Trust we wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.