From 24 to 29 August this year, SEB Arena in Vilnius will host the IBTA World Blind Tennis Championships for the first time in Lithuanian history. More than 120 athletes from around 20 countries will compete in the Lithuanian capital, including the host nation’s team. Yet for many spectators visiting the arena, the biggest surprise may not be the results, but the sport itself. How do you play tennis without seeing the ball? How do you serve, find your way around the court and win a point by relying on sound alone?
A sport where hearing matters most
Blind tennis may sound difficult to comprehend. Yet consistent work, long hours of training, acute hearing and determination make it possible.
“Instead of the conventional tennis ball we are used to, blind tennis uses a special sound ball. It contains elements that produce sound, allowing players to determine the ball’s position, direction and speed, as well as their own distance from it. The key is concentration, focus and directing all your attention towards the sound,” explains Aidas Danilovas, Director of the World Championship.
The court also differs from a conventional tennis court. It is smaller, the net is lower, and the key boundaries are marked with raised tactile lines that players can feel with their feet or racket. This helps even completely blind players orient themselves in space.
Another important rule is that the ball is allowed to bounce up to three times.
“For example, in the B1 category, in which completely blind athletes compete, three bounces are allowed. The same applies in the B2 category. In the other categories, two or one bounce is permitted. This helps maintain the dynamics of the game while ensuring that athletes with different levels of residual vision can compete on equal terms,” Danilovas says.
Why must there be complete silence during a match?
Blind tennis has one particularly strict rule that spectators must follow: while a point is being played, complete silence must be maintained in the stands.
“In theory, this rule also applies in conventional tennis, but we have all seen crowds erupt in applause even in the middle of a point. In blind tennis, every additional sound can prevent athletes from hearing the ball. That is why spectators applaud only after the point has ended. This is also why the atmosphere in blind tennis is sometimes compared to golf – concentration is no less important here than skill,” says Danilovas.
He says that the first few minutes of discovering blind tennis usually change the way people see the sport.
“Blind tennis very quickly changes a spectator’s perspective. When people come to watch, they do not see disability – they see sport: speed, tactics, reactions and tremendous professionalism. That is exactly what we want to show tennis fans who come to the World Championships in Vilnius.”
From Japan to Vilnius – a rapidly growing sport
Modern blind tennis originated in Japan in the 1980s. It later spread across Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australia, and today international competitions are held on almost every continent.
In Lithuania, the sport took its first steps only a few years ago. The first training sessions began in 2022, a community soon formed, and Lithuanian athletes started competing in international tournaments. Today, around 30 players train across the country, with blind tennis centres operating in Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda and Šiauliai. Seven Lithuanian players already hold international classifications and are earning world ranking points.
The country’s leading player, Karolis Verbliugevičius, is a World Championships medallist and won the European blind tennis title in Warsaw in 2025. This year, together with the Lithuanian national team, he will be aiming for medals at the World Championships on home soil.
World Championships offer a chance to discover a different kind of tennis
The organisers hope that at the end of August people will come to SEB Arena not only to support Lithuanian athletes, but also out of curiosity to see for themselves a sport that, until now, relatively few people have even heard of.
“We want to show that even this kind of disability is no barrier for determined, athletic and competitive people. I can say that discovering blind tennis live and seeing the world’s blind tennis stars in action is a truly interesting experience. That is why I would like to invite everyone to SEB Arena – especially as admission to the event is free,” says Danilovas.
