For 42 years, the Australian Groups Championships have been offering younger Australians with the required values to turn into our subsequent Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup gamers.
Gold Coast, QLD, 3 July 2025 | Jackson Mansell
Australia’s Davis Cup and Billie Jean King Cup groups have turn into synonymous with fostering a robust group tradition and camaraderie.
The idea of taking part in for one thing greater than themselves has fuelled those that have worn the inexperienced and gold, resulting in international success.
For 42 years, the Australian Groups Championships have performed a key position in offering rising gamers with the required qualities required to play in a group surroundings, and someday symbolize their nation.
READ: Joint champions declared at 11/u and 13/u Australian Groups Championships
The 2-week occasion sees Australia’s greatest tennis gamers between the ages of 10 and 15 compete for bragging rights in a state-versus-state competitors.
“Tennis is a really particular person sport, so there’s not many alternatives the place gamers compete as a group,” Match Director Francis Soyer stated. “So, we attempt to create that [team-like] expertise for tennis gamers if we will all through their journey.
“A number of gamers which have developed [over] the journey and have gone on to be skilled gamers and even coaches, they all the time communicate very fondly of their expertise inside a group surroundings.”
The match’s honour roll options the likes of Thanasi Kokkinakis, who helped South Australia to the Sproule Stephens Trophy – given to the 14/u boys’ champions – towards Nick Kyrgios’ ACT in 2009.
Their group images from that day, amongst these of different previous champions, encompass the courts at KDV Sport on the Gold Coast, the place the championships are at present held.
GALLERY: Meet the winners of the 2025 11/u and 13/u Australian Groups Championships
“We’ve been lucky that we’ve had a very good crop of younger Aussie gamers come by [this event] and turn into skilled gamers, which has occurred over the match’s historical past,” Soyer stated.
“Adults and so forth will inform their children that Nick Kyrgios and Thanasi Kokkinakis performed right here, they usually don’t actually imagine it, however now that they see it on the partitions, hopefully it springs to their thoughts.”
Queenslander Tori Russell competed in her fourth Australian Groups Championships, main her state to back-to-back 15/u titles.
The Australian Open 2025 women’ singles competitor has added motivation when she competes within the match.
“I actually get pleasure from these group competitions, particularly right here, proper in my yard,” she stated earlier than the occasion. “I actually get pleasure from representing one thing greater than myself, and hopefully I can do my state proud this week.”
The Australian Groups Championships not solely profit the gamers, however in addition they profit the coaches. South Australian 11/u boys and 15/u women coach, Sandon Stolle, says the match supplies coaches with enhanced perception into gamers’ processes all through a match, giving them prompt suggestions.
“It’s really a chance for coaches, like myself, to sit down on the court docket with the gamers, I believe that’s a singular a part of this occasion,” the previous doubles world No.2 stated.
“[You] get to hearken to them a bit of bit, [identify] what they’re going by and attempt to speak them by the match a bit of bit extra. That’s one thing that they don’t [usually] get. With tennis being a person sport, they’re all the time having to do this verbalisation internally.”
A former Davis Cup participant himself, Stolle is a fan of the Staff Championships idea because it emphasises the significance of teamwork.
“I just like the format when it’s a rubber-all within the singles, and it comes right down to doubles and the significance of doubles and actually pushing the talents with the doubles onto the children as nicely,” he stated. “I all the time worth the doubles, being a former participant myself and selecting up these abilities, they switch rather a lot into singles.
“The children that do play in [the Australian Teams Championships] actually embrace it and do get pleasure from it as a result of it’s very aggressive and it’s nice group bonding and [a great] group surroundings.”
Discover your solution to play: Go to to hit the court docket and have some enjoyable!
