By JARROD POTTER
HAMPTON Park Primary School’s Teodora Skilja had to fight hard for her spot in the Victorian tennis team.
Skilja, 12, from Hampton Park, won the right to represent School Sport Victoria at the School Sport Australia 12 years and under tennis (Bruce Cup) championships.
Needing to win her final qualifying match to book a spot in the side, Skilja won her fifth and deciding match to book her spot in the team headed to Queensland.
“It was very exciting – we had to play round robin matches – one set, first to six,” Skilja said. “If you got all your sets you’d go through straight away, but if you won three and lost one, you had to play more matches.
“The last match – for the seventh place – the winner would go through. It was good. The matches were tough, but in the end everything went well.”
Winning her spot in the team – Skilja is prepared for a difficult tournament, but awaits the challenge gleefully.
“It feels very exciting and I’m very excited to go to Brisbane as well,” Skilja said.
“I think that all the matches will be tough – it won’t be easy – but hopefully everything goes well.
“I just want to try my best and whatever happens, happens. I have to concentrate on whatever my coach (Justin Yeo) tells me.”
A baseline specialist – smashing powerful returns on her favoured right forehand – Sklija loves the freedom of singles play, but also relishes any opportunity to perform in the doubles and mixed doubles.
She’s got experience on her side – six and a half years of playing tennis has accrued some significant milestones – including a win in last year’s Alicia Molik Cup with her Waverley pennant team – knocking off North Suburban in two tiebreakers.
“Last year I played pennant and our team won out of the girls and just recently I played the Alicia Molik Cup,” Skilja said. “I played for Waverley and played North Suburban in the final. In the end the scores were equal and we had to play a tiebreaker for the doubles.
“Then the scores were level again and we had to play another tiebreaker – in that tiebreaker Waverley won.”
Skilja wanted to thank her parents for their support, her school and her first coach – Tim Simons and current coach Justin Yeo.
The School Sports Australia tennis championships are held this year in Brisbane from 19-26 October.
