Arato Katsuda-Green, who will compete at the inaugural Australian Blind and Low Vision Championships in Melbourne this weekend, is maintaining faith in his tennis dreams.
Melbourne, Australia, 29 September 2022 | Darren Parkin
Arato Katsuda-Green loves tennis and that passion promises to carry him a long way, despite the challenges life has thrown at him.
The 10-year-old from Sydney fell in love with the game at the age of four, spending six days a week on court, often honing his skills alongside his mother Junko.
The aim was to hopefully emulate the deeds of his favourite player, Austrian star and US Open 2020 champion Dominic Thiem.
“It was a sport I started playing early with Mum,” said Arato. “I like tennis because it is a very independent sport. You don’t have to rely on others so much.”
But around 18 months ago his coach, Troy McDonald, started to notice changes with the young athlete and it was difficult to pinpoint why.
“He started missing balls, and missing the bounce, hitting over the top of or under balls,” mother Junko explained.
Arato was subsequently diagnosed with Stargardt’s Disease, a rare genetic eye disease that occurs when fatty material builds up on the macula — the small part of the retina needed for sharp, central vision.
Arato’s father, Tim, is extremely familiar with the condition, having been afflicted with Stargardt’s since his mid-20s.
“I developed the condition a bit later than most people do. It’s usually something that develops between the ages of eight and 12 or 13, but I was 25 or 26,” Tim explained.
“Until the age of 25 I had been training to be a triathlete, and my team-mates noticed I had progressively started tripping over things on the road and stumbling a bit.”
At the time Tim was diagnosed, he was told there was practically no chance he would pass on the condition genetically to any children he might have.
“I was told that it’s recessive, and I shouldn’t worry about passing it on,” he said.
It has since been discovered that in very rare cases, some forms of Stargardt’s can be found in dominant genes.
Arato had been tested at the age of six, with those tests coming up normal. But when red flags were raised by his coach, further tests confirmed the presence of the condition.
McDonald, a high-performance coach and a director with the Zone Tennis Academy in Sydney, spoke glowingly about his young student.
“The most talented kid I ever…
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