When visiting the gym in 2003 Dave overheard someone talking about wheelchair tennis. He enquired and was told that coach Ivor Griffiths ran a weekly session on Sunday evenings, so Dave went along the following week to see if it was something he could do. He found tennis very difficult, being new to a sports wheelchair, and new to a tennis racket. But Ivor was very encouraging and Dave persevered to become a regular player.
In 2004 Dave bought a sports wheelchair, with two sets of wheels, one for basketball and the other for tennis. This served him well, but gradually became a bit battered and slow, so in 2009 he applied to the Dan Maskell Trust for a new Quickie Matchpoint chair. Notably lighter and more manouverable he finds it significantly faster around the court, "but it doesn't stop me netting though!"
With the other sports Dave is involved in (particularly kayaking and triathlon) he still finds time for the odd tennis competition, competing four times in the local tournament in Taunton. He had a knack of losing not only his opening game, but also the first match of each competition. He invariably finished off the bottom, but out of the medal positions. This finally changed in 2009 when he won the novice class at the Taunton Tournament for the first time.
With his heavy training schedule through the summer season, Dave finds it hard to make the time to attend major tournaments or training camps, but he has attended a weekend in Nottingham, and more recently, in March 2010, a training day in Swindon, receiving some coaching from amoung others, Jyant Mistry.