<p>In Britain, when the Queen’s Birthday Honours list was announced in June, Jordanne Whiley had cause for a double celebration. On June 11, she turned 23. The following day, she found she was to receive a Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her services to sport. “I had to read it a couple of times, thinking, 'What? No! Let me read it again…and again,’” she says, laughing. “But no, I never imagined I would get an MBE, so it was a real shock.”<br /><br /></p>.<p>All of 4’ 10”, Jordanne made history in New York last September when she and her doubles partner, Japan’s Yui Kamiji, won their fourth Grand Slam victory in a row at the US Open. The win made Jordanne the first Briton — either in able-bodied or wheelchair tennis (the game follows the same rules as able-bodied tennis, with the exception that the ball is allowed to bounce twice) — to win all four Grand Slams in a calendar year.<br /><br />But while the British public barely stopped short of declaring a public holiday when Andy Murray won Wimbledon in 2013, only those with a Sky box and a red button had the opportunity to watch Jordanne make history. “I’m not bitter about it at all, but I do think that all the people on the wheelchair tour should get more exposure,” Jordanne says. “We train just as hard as the likes of Andy Murray, we probably play the same number of <br />tournaments — but that’s why I was so honoured to get my MBE, because I never thought anyone would ever think to nominate me.”<br /><br />Music video producer Zak Razvi, who made a short film, Jordanne, about <br />Jordanne last year, says this is typical. <br /><br />“Jordanne is very talented but she’s also super-driven. That’s what struck me when I first met her. I thought, ‘You’re this normal person and the way you’re talking, you have no idea how incredible your journey has been so far.’” <br /><br />All in the family<br /><br />Jordanne has osteogenesis imperfecta — more commonly known as brittle bone disease — a condition she inherited from her father, Keith. While Jordanne is still able to walk, her father uses a wheelchair day to day. “Not long after I was born, a new drug that strengthened bone density was discovered. Were it not for that drug I don’t think I’d be walking now, so I was very lucky.” Her father, who took up wheelchair tennis after retirement (he was a 100 m bronze medallist at the 1984 Paralympics), was the main influence in getting Jordanne involved in the sport. “I get asked all the time who my sporting role model is, but I have never, ever looked up to anybody else because I never needed to,” Jordanne explains. <br /><br />She also talks about growing up with brittle bones and the bullying she faced at school. She recalls classmates taking her schoolbags and emptying out their <br />contents, or putting them on top of the projectors out of her reach. “It was <br />horrendous, but I had tennis, so I could go out of school and play and everything was fine. Then I’d go back to school and it was horrendous again,” she says. “At the time I thought it was the worst time of my life and I was always sad, but now I look back and it’s nice to know they didn’t shape my life.” <br /><br />At just 14, Jordanne became Britain’s youngest ever wheelchair tennis singles champion and on her sixteenth birthday in 2008, she qualified for the Paralympics in Beijing. “It wasn’t until after Beijing that I realised I wanted to take it seriously,”Jordanne says. “I only got to the quarter finals of the doubles and the first round in the singles, so with the London Olympics coming up, I knew I needed to get my act together.”<br /><br />Picking the path<br /><br />After her GCSE (The General Certificate of Secondary Education), Jordanne had to make a choice between sport and education. At college, she studied forensics before choosing to follow tennis. “It’s strange, I know,” she laughs. “I used to have coroner books I would read on tour and show to my boyfriend Marc (McCarroll, also a wheelchair tennis player, whom Jordanne has been with for three years), going, 'Look, did you know this?’” <br /><br />It was at the London Paralympics in 2012 that she won bronze in the doubles and became the first British woman to win a medal in the sport. “London was…the best. Just the best experience,” she says. “I wish I could have done better than the bronze but I am happy that I managed to medal.”<br /><br />Jordanne has the golden tan that only tennis players seem to manage, and shoulders that are testament to the gym work she does three days a week for injury prevention. “Then we have endurance sessions where we row or cycle for about five kilometres until we die,” she says. She trains from 10 am until 4 pm five days a week, only cutting back when a tournament is approaching. <br /><br />While Jordanne is hoping for further success, she is keen to emphasise that she is mostly concerned with helping promote her sport. “I’ve said it a few times, but I think women especially should have role models who aren’t perfect,” she says. <br /><br /></p>
<p>In Britain, when the Queen’s Birthday Honours list was announced in June, Jordanne Whiley had cause for a double celebration. On June 11, she turned 23. The following day, she found she was to receive a Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) for her services to sport. “I had to read it a couple of times, thinking, 'What? No! Let me read it again…and again,’” she says, laughing. “But no, I never imagined I would get an MBE, so it was a real shock.”<br /><br /></p>.<p>All of 4’ 10”, Jordanne made history in New York last September when she and her doubles partner, Japan’s Yui Kamiji, won their fourth Grand Slam victory in a row at the US Open. The win made Jordanne the first Briton — either in able-bodied or wheelchair tennis (the game follows the same rules as able-bodied tennis, with the exception that the ball is allowed to bounce twice) — to win all four Grand Slams in a calendar year.<br /><br />But while the British public barely stopped short of declaring a public holiday when Andy Murray won Wimbledon in 2013, only those with a Sky box and a red button had the opportunity to watch Jordanne make history. “I’m not bitter about it at all, but I do think that all the people on the wheelchair tour should get more exposure,” Jordanne says. “We train just as hard as the likes of Andy Murray, we probably play the same number of <br />tournaments — but that’s why I was so honoured to get my MBE, because I never thought anyone would ever think to nominate me.”<br /><br />Music video producer Zak Razvi, who made a short film, Jordanne, about <br />Jordanne last year, says this is typical. <br /><br />“Jordanne is very talented but she’s also super-driven. That’s what struck me when I first met her. I thought, ‘You’re this normal person and the way you’re talking, you have no idea how incredible your journey has been so far.’” <br /><br />All in the family<br /><br />Jordanne has osteogenesis imperfecta — more commonly known as brittle bone disease — a condition she inherited from her father, Keith. While Jordanne is still able to walk, her father uses a wheelchair day to day. “Not long after I was born, a new drug that strengthened bone density was discovered. Were it not for that drug I don’t think I’d be walking now, so I was very lucky.” Her father, who took up wheelchair tennis after retirement (he was a 100 m bronze medallist at the 1984 Paralympics), was the main influence in getting Jordanne involved in the sport. “I get asked all the time who my sporting role model is, but I have never, ever looked up to anybody else because I never needed to,” Jordanne explains. <br /><br />She also talks about growing up with brittle bones and the bullying she faced at school. She recalls classmates taking her schoolbags and emptying out their <br />contents, or putting them on top of the projectors out of her reach. “It was <br />horrendous, but I had tennis, so I could go out of school and play and everything was fine. Then I’d go back to school and it was horrendous again,” she says. “At the time I thought it was the worst time of my life and I was always sad, but now I look back and it’s nice to know they didn’t shape my life.” <br /><br />At just 14, Jordanne became Britain’s youngest ever wheelchair tennis singles champion and on her sixteenth birthday in 2008, she qualified for the Paralympics in Beijing. “It wasn’t until after Beijing that I realised I wanted to take it seriously,”Jordanne says. “I only got to the quarter finals of the doubles and the first round in the singles, so with the London Olympics coming up, I knew I needed to get my act together.”<br /><br />Picking the path<br /><br />After her GCSE (The General Certificate of Secondary Education), Jordanne had to make a choice between sport and education. At college, she studied forensics before choosing to follow tennis. “It’s strange, I know,” she laughs. “I used to have coroner books I would read on tour and show to my boyfriend Marc (McCarroll, also a wheelchair tennis player, whom Jordanne has been with for three years), going, 'Look, did you know this?’” <br /><br />It was at the London Paralympics in 2012 that she won bronze in the doubles and became the first British woman to win a medal in the sport. “London was…the best. Just the best experience,” she says. “I wish I could have done better than the bronze but I am happy that I managed to medal.”<br /><br />Jordanne has the golden tan that only tennis players seem to manage, and shoulders that are testament to the gym work she does three days a week for injury prevention. “Then we have endurance sessions where we row or cycle for about five kilometres until we die,” she says. She trains from 10 am until 4 pm five days a week, only cutting back when a tournament is approaching. <br /><br />While Jordanne is hoping for further success, she is keen to emphasise that she is mostly concerned with helping promote her sport. “I’ve said it a few times, but I think women especially should have role models who aren’t perfect,” she says. <br /><br /></p>
