Justin DeSanto met Casey Ratzlaff in 2017 at Wichita State University and agreed to coach him when it became obvious tennis mattered to Ratzlaff.
“Working with someone who was chasing a professional career and wanting to do this for a living was very appealing,” said DeSanto, now men’s coach at Dartmouth College. “You knew you were going to get that buy-in at every practice, and that’s what I got with Casey.”
The team that started at WSU’s Coleman Tennis Complex grew into one of the most successful in wheelchair tennis. Ratzlaff, a sport management major at Wichita State, will play in the men’s open division in the Paris Paralympics Games starting Friday. He is the top-ranked American and seeded No. 13 in the 64-man field.