{"id":42874,"date":"2025-10-06T10:19:47","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T23:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/?p=42874"},"modified":"2025-10-24T13:06:03","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T02:06:03","slug":"most-outstanding-athlete-with-a-disability-finalists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/news\/2025\/10\/06\/most-outstanding-athlete-with-a-disability-finalists","title":{"rendered":"Most Outstanding Athlete with a Disability &#8211; Finalists"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Congratulations to Caroline Lane, Finn Broadbent, Luke Missen and Jin Woodman who were recently announced as this year&#8217;s finalists.<\/p>\n<p>This award recognises outstanding athletes with a disability who have a record playing for Australia or Victoria and have improved their ranking or sustained a Top 20 ranking during the nomination period. These athletes display a commendable attitude on and off the court and have complied with all rules and conducts set by Tennis Australia.<\/p>\n<p>Meet the finalists:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2><b>Caroline Lane \u2013 Blind &amp; Low Vision Tennis<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>Caroline\u2019s strong performances in 2024 set her up well for 2025. I<span data-teams=\"true\">n September last year, she travelled to Italy and competed in her first international event winning a silver medal at the IBTA World Championships B3 Singles. Late in 2024, she took a break and welcomed her first child Otis in June. Caroline is already back trainning and looking ahead to 2026. <\/span>She is currently ranked No. 2 in the B3 Women\u2019s Singles.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2><b>Finn Broadbent \u2013 Wheelchair Tennis<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>Finn Broadbent has achieved a career-high ranking of No. 25 in singles and No. 14 in doubles in 2025. He claimed both the singles and doubles titles at the 2025 ITFFS Brescia and has built an impressive doubles record, securing titles at the Canberra Wheelchair Open, Queensland Wheelchair Open, Commit Open, Kaohsiung Open, and TTF 1 &amp; 2 in 2024. Finn\u2019s results highlight his growing reputation as one of Victoria\u2019s strongest wheelchair players.<\/p>\n<h2><b>Luke Missen \u2013 Para-Standing Tennis<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>Luke is currently the world 1# ranked PST4 Para-Standing Tennis player, European Doubles Champion and Oceania Singles Champion. His contribution to the sport goes well beyond his own achievements as he&#8217;s been helping grow Para-Standing Tennis, having facilitated a Para-Standing Tennis event on the Gold Coast, supported many other Para-Standing Tennis events and serves both on the Bairnsdale Tennis Club Committee and the Australian Standing Adaptive Tennis Committee.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h2><b>Jin Woodman \u2013 Wheelchair Tennis<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>16-year-old Jin Woodman has risen to No. 3 in the Junior Singles ITF rankings and No. 9 in Quad Singles. Earlier this year, Jin was supposed to go to Korea and Japan to compete, but suffered an injury to his femur which forced him to take a break from tennis. However, Jin made his comeback at the 2025 US Open, where he avenged his 2025 Australian Open defeat to Ahmet Kaplan from Turkey. Jin defeated the No. 4 seed 6-1, 4-6, 6-2 to reach the US Open quad singles quarterfinals, proving he is a player to keep your eyes on.<\/p>\n<p>When the winner is announced on Sunday 26 October at Kooyong Lawn Tennis Club, who will join the list of athletes below? If you\u2019d like to attend the Tennis Victoria Player Awards, a limited number of tickets are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eventbrite.com.au\/e\/2025-tennis-victoria-player-awards-tickets-1712941276469?aff=oddtdtcreator\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">available now<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Previous Winners:<\/p>\n<p><strong>2023\/24 \u2013 Finn Broadbent<\/strong><br \/>2022\/23 \u2013 Heath Davidson<br \/>2021\/22 \u2013 Heath Davidson<br \/>2020\/21 \u2013 Olivia Sayers &amp; Riley Dumsday<br \/>2018\/19 \u2013 Dylan Alcott<br \/>2017\/18 \u2013 Carla Lenarduzzi<br \/>2016\/17 \u2013 Heath Davidson &amp; Dylan Alcott<br \/>2015\/16 \u2013 Dylan Alcott<br \/>2014\/15 \u2013 Dylan Alcott<br \/>2013\/14 \u2013 Dylan Alcott<br \/>2012\/13 \u2013 Glen Flindell<br \/>2011\/12 \u2013 Zvi Schweitzer<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Congratulations to this year&#8217;s finalists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6423,"featured_media":42921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[98,1,56],"tags":[104,82],"class_list":["post-42874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-news","category-reward-recognition","tag-inclusion-and-diversity","tag-victorian-tennis-awards"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42874"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42874\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/vic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}