Australian wheelchair tennis coach Greg Crump has guided multiple players to world No.1 and is excited for the many possibilities in the sport.
Melbourne, VIC, 23 July 2025 | Victoria Rudnikov
David Hall, Daniela Di Toro, and Dylan Alcott inspired generations of wheelchair tennis players in Australia.
Their mentor and coach, Greg Crump, affectionately known as ‘Crumpy’, was part of that journey and is now leading their successors.
Under Crump’s tutelage, Australia currently has five players inside the ITF boys’ wheelchair top 25, including Jin Woodman, Benjamin Wenzel, and Arlo Shawcross. Meanwhile, Xahannah Turner-OMalley sits in the top 20 of the girls’ wheelchair category.
In this week’s episode of The Sit-Down podcast, the 2024 ITF Wheelchair Coach of the Year discussed the value of harnessing talent from a young age.
“You’ve got to get the next generation coming through quickly, and those kids [inside the top 20] are 14, 15,” he said. “In three years’ time, they’ll age out, and you’ve got the next crop coming through, so you need to be on it.
“A lot of countries have neglected that. They’ve dined out on their current players, and they’ve retired and gone, ‘Oh, what’s next?’ You’ve got to be mindful of who’s coming through next.”
Although his current focus is on junior development, Crump’s own ascent through the sport is nothing short of inspirational.
READ: Cool Crocs win Greg Crump Cup
As a child, Crump became involved in tennis through his family. His mother, father, and sister all loved the sport, so naturally he would come along with them to Saturday morning competitions in Wangaratta in rural Victoria.
He liked the idea of “one-on-one competition”, which eventually earned him a scholarship to play at North Central Texas College.
While his professional playing career never quite kicked off, Crumpy’s work in the sport was only just beginning.
When looking back on his 40-year wheelchair coaching career, Crump admits he didn’t know much about wheelchair coaching until it was briefly mentioned in a coaching course he was completing. “For one reason or another, a light went off in my head and I thought, that’s a good idea. I’m going to do that,” he said.
Crump picked up the Yellow Pages and called around until he secured a volunteer position at Austin Spinal Hospital in Heidelberg, in Melbourne’s north-east, assisting with patient rehabilitation.
“I was also young at the time. I was in my early 20s, so normally in your early 20s you go ‘me, me, me. It’s all about me’,” he said. “So, I sort of tapped myself on the shoulder and then went, ‘Well done, Greggy. You thought of some other people and giving back’.”
Back when he started this journey, it was what Crump described as “purely honorary”.
“There’s substantially more money in Grand Slams, and it’s a professional sport where you’ve got full-time coaches and athletes,” he said. “A lot of them can make a living out of it, which is great, and myself included in that as well, but 20, 30 years ago, there was no one making any money out of it whatsoever. You were out of pocket.”
Through his commitment to scouting and coaching elite players, as well as his involvement with the International Wheelchair Tennis Association and the ITF Wheelchair Tennis Committee, Crump has become a trailblazer in wheelchair tennis, playing a pivotal role in the growth of the sport.
Despite receiving global recognition for his contributions, his proudest achievements have come from helping others.
“To make a difference to someone’s life, I think that’s something not many people can say that you’ve actually changed someone’s life from having a trauma,” said Crump, who still runs weekly tennis sessions for spinal cord injury patients.
“If you can get them on the court, you’ve got them.”
Find your way to play: Visit play.tennis.com.au to hit the court and have some fun!
