From 24 to 29 August 2026, the IBTA World Blind Tennis Championship will be held at SEB Arena in Vilnius for the first time in Lithuanian history. Some of the strongest athletes in the sport from countries around the world will come to Lithuania, with Lithuanian players also taking part.
This is a historic event for Lithuanian sport and the blind tennis community. In just a few years, the sport in Lithuania has grown from its first training sessions to international recognition and the right to host a top-level World Championship. Lithuanians have been playing blind tennis since 2021. The sport began gaining greater visibility in Lithuania in 2022, when the first regular training sessions were launched, a community began to form and Lithuanian athletes started competing internationally.
“Hosting the World Championships in Lithuania is a tremendous recognition for our entire community. It shows that blind tennis in Lithuania is no longer a new initiative – it is a growing sport with ambition, results and international trust,” says coach and one of the initiators of blind tennis in Lithuania, Aidas Danilovas.
Blind tennis differs from conventional tennis in several important ways. A sound ball is used, the court is smaller, the net is lower, and players orient themselves using sound and tactile lines. The ball is allowed to bounce up to three times before being hit. In the B1 category, completely blind athletes navigate the court using only sound, their senses and spatial memory.
At the Championships, athletes will compete in the official IBTA sight categories – B1, B2, B3 and B4. Lithuanian athletes are also preparing to compete across different sight categories. The Lithuanian team currently consists of 14 players.
One of the leading names in Lithuanian blind tennis is Karolis Verbliugevičius. At the 2023 World Blind Sports Games in Birmingham, he finished second, and later that year he took third place at the World Blind Tennis Championships in Kraków. He subsequently returned to the world podium, repeating his third-place finish at the World Championships in Italy, before becoming European blind tennis champion in Warsaw in 2025.
“This championship in Lithuania is very important to me. It is an opportunity to show that our country is already on the world blind tennis map. We are capable not only of taking part, but also of competing with the very best,” says Karolis Verbliugevičius.
Blind tennis is a sport in which the key qualities are not sight, but hearing, concentration, reaction, tactical preparation and self-confidence. It also offers spectators a unique experience: silence is particularly important during play because athletes determine the direction, speed and position of the ball by listening to its sound.
“Blind tennis changes a spectator’s perspective very quickly. People come and see not disability, but sport: intensity, speed, tactics, competition and tremendous professionalism. That is exactly what we want to show at the World Championships in Lithuania,” says Aidas Danilovas.
According to the organisers, the Championships are important for more than sporting results. The event will help strengthen inclusive sport in Lithuania, raise awareness of blind tennis, increase Lithuania’s visibility within the international blind tennis community and give the public an opportunity to see first-hand the high level of skill demonstrated by athletes with visual impairments.
An event of this scale will also require a large team of volunteers. The organisers invite everyone who would like to become part of this historic event to join – from ball boys and ball girls to athlete guides, information assistants, venue coordinators and other volunteers who will help ensure the smooth running of the Championships.
“This will be a major international event, so volunteers will be extremely important to us. We will need people to help on the courts, accompany athletes, assist them in navigating the venue, support organisational tasks and create a welcoming atmosphere. We invite everyone to volunteer: it is not only an opportunity to contribute to a World Championship, but also to discover up close a sport that changes perceptions of human potential,” says Aidas Danilovas.
According to the organisers, volunteering at the Championships will be important not only in practical terms but also symbolically. Everyone who joins will become part of the event and help create an environment in which athletes with visual impairments can compete at the highest level, feel safe, remain independent and be properly welcomed in Lithuania.
“Blind tennis shows that limits often exist only in our minds. Visual impairment does not take away the opportunity to pursue victories, play sport, represent your country and inspire others,” says Karolis Verbliugevičius.
The World Championships are being organised in Lithuania for the first time. It is hoped that the event will become not only a high-level sporting competition, but also an important opportunity to raise public awareness and encourage broader discussion about accessibility, inclusion and the power of sport to challenge established stereotypes.
From 24 to 29 August 2026, Vilnius will become one of the world’s key centres for adaptive sport as SEB Arena hosts the official IBTA World Blind Tennis Championships for the first time. The patron of the Championships is Speaker of the Seimas Juozas Olekas. The patron sponsor is UAB STEBULĖ. The main sponsor is SEB Arena. The event is supported by Vilnius City Municipality, Go Vilnius, the Lithuanian Tennis Association, Remlyga, Forvis Mazars, Sportland and others.
