Serving Advantage Adaptive Tennis

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It’s a tennis program specifically for kids with intellectual and developmental disabilities. I’m on the court today and I’ll tell you all about Serving Advantage.

Well, finding sports programs for teens with intellectual or developmental disabilities can be a challenge. But as CBSLA’s Reena Nano shows us, the Orange County nonprofit Serving Advantage is catering specifically to this underserved population one ace at a time.
Emma Belingut is obsessed with animals, especially birds. But last year, she found a new love.
She doesn’t really like playing a lot of sports, but when she started playing tennis, she said, “This is my sport.” The 17-year-old was diagnosed with autism as a toddler. To get her active, her mother, Marica, contacted Disability Services nonprofit Regional Center of Orange County.

Nice job, Emma. They recommended Serving Advantage. They have a place with us that’s safe.

It’s welcoming. You know, we support the way that they learn.

It’s an adaptive tennis program run by teens for teens with intellectual or developmental disabilities.

It started by Wendy Eusebio’s older son, Jacob, who wanted to bond with his younger brother, Evan, who is on the autism spectrum. Nothing seemed to work until one day the brothers walked onto a tennis court.

I think for Jacob, that was a first, you know, to actually have his brother pay attention to him and and actually want to do something where they were not just alongside, but they were working together.

Jacob and his friends Andy Lochan and Natalie Rodriguez hosted the first Serving Advantage summer camp in 2020. Oh, nice.
It’s now a nonprofit providing yearround group clinics twice a month where local high school volunteers coach a structured adaptive curriculum.

We have so many volunteers now that each student usually gets two buddies. Even though it’s a group lesson, it almost functions as mini private lessons.

Though Jacob is now away at college, brother Evan continues to enjoy the program with her mother as the organization’s president.
In the last six years, Serving Advantage has welcomed more than 200 adaptive athletes, including Emma.

I love the Canada geese, but Egyptian are my favorite, who is now teaching her tennis coaches about her favorite birds.
Her enthusiasm and her confidence and the the social component.

She told me the change she saw in her daughter was nothing short of remarkable. The only problem is now she wants to come every single week.

She’s going to start private lessons with one of the coaches. Originally just a tool to get her active, tennis has now become an integral part of Emma’s life.

All thanks to Serving Advantage.

Make the world a little bit more inclusive and and a little bit more kind. And at the end of the day, like our main goal is just to see them walk off the court saying that was like the best day ever.

In Irvine, I’m Raina Nono, CBSLA.