YORBA LINDA : ‘Love’ Is the Score for This Tennis Player

Somewhere in Anaheim Hills lies the curve in the road that changed Marty Anderson’s life.

Fifteen years ago, when the collection of hills just south of Yorba Linda was sparsely populated, Marty, then a toddler, was a passenger with an older sister in a car driven by another sister.

No one is sure exactly what happened, but one minute he was sitting in the back seat and the next he was flung from the car as it rounded a curve in the road.

His sisters took him to what is now Kaiser Permanente Hospital, where it was discovered he had suffered numerous broken bones and spinal nerve damage.

The prognosis was grim, and Anderson’s parents had last rites administered to their son.

Peggy Anderson, Marty’s mother, calls the recovery that left her son paralyzed only in the right leg a miracle.

She shudders thinking about what could have been.

“Not a day goes by where I don’t count my blessings,” Peggy Anderson said. “Marty is alive and has his mind.”

And Marty Anderson, now a 17-year-old junior at Esperanza High School, sees no reason to perceive the result of that accident as anything but fortunate.

After all, he said, he can get around, even if he needs a leg brace for short distances and a wheelchair for longer trips.

Walking with a leg brace is a major accomplishment for Anderson, whom doctors originally thought might never walk again.

But it is from the wheelchair that Anderson is enjoying his greatest physical success.

Two years ago, as part of physical therapy, he began playing wheelchair tennis.

The therapy was supposed to be temporary, to help him regain strength after he was hospitalized with a severe infection in his right leg.

But the sport quickly became more than therapy, and Anderson began taking lessons from a tennis pro in Pomona who worked with both wheelchair and able-bodied players.

In just his second season of playing competitively, Anderson has made it to the finals in five of the 12 tournaments he has entered, winning four of them.

In October he won first place in the consolation bracket of the Wheelchair Tennis U.S. Open at UC Irvine.

Earlier this year, he was ranked 10th in the nation among all “C” level players.

Anderson’s accomplishments are especially significant considering his age. At 17, he is one of the youngest players on the wheelchair circuit.

And unlike many wheelchair tennis players who played tennis before they were injured, Anderson did not grow up with the sport.

What he does have is determination, both his and his mother’s, to lead a full life.

Since the accident, Anderson has had to live with people telling him he couldn’t achieve what other boys could.

If not for the determination of his mother, Anderson said, he might have believed them.

“My mom got me involved in a lot of things,” he said. “I played Little League baseball, soccer and karate. She wanted me to see I could do anything.”

Now Anderson would like to help others with disabilities accomplish their dreams.

He plans to become a counselor and wheelchair tennis coach for other young players.

Already he has encouraged several people to take up the sport.

“I want to give something back to this sport,” Anderson said. “It can make the difference between getting out and doing things and just sitting at home in your chair.”