TENNIS
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THE NSW team led by Bathurst player Grace Schumacher has come away victorious from the Foundation Cup held in Melbourne which finished last week.
Schumacher went into the under 13s team tournament as the highest-ranked player for the NSW side.
She showed exactly why as she produced a brilliant individual display over the course of the tournament.
The Eglinton prodigy was undefeated through the course of the competition and proved hard just to take a game off as well as she spearheaded the NSW charge to victory.
“We played all the states, it was in a pool format so we played everyone once and then the top two teams met in the final,” Schumacher explained.
“We won all our matches except for one against Victoria, in the end we only lost that by a single game, but we were in front of the other states and earned a spot in the final.
“We beat them [Victoria] four sets to two in that final, it was a nice feeling to beat them and get the win.”
The 13-year-old’s statistics from the tournament make for amazing reading.
She played six matches in total, won all of them in straight sets, and dropped only 12 games throughout the whole event.
Essentially she was winning every set she played 6-1.
Two other players in Victoria’s Jess McDonald and NSW team-mate Rhiannon McBlane also went through undefeated, but neither enjoyed the sort of total dominance of Schumacher.
She also stayed unbeaten in the doubles matches.
The highlight of the whole Federation Cup perhaps came in the round two match that Schumacher alluded to, a thriller between two well-matched teams.
After the Bathurst player had easily defeated Amy Stevens 6-1, 6-1, Victoria hit back with McDonald winning her match and Megan Markov also getting a win for the southerners.
Schumacher and McBlane won their doubles match comfortably, but the second doubles match saw McDonald and Markov defeat their NSW opponents, who fell just a game short of doing enough to win the clash.
It didn’t matter in the decider though as NSW turned in a near flawless display, winning three of the four singles matches and clinching the trophy when Schumacher and McBlane again proved too strong in the doubles.
“I felt like I played pretty well,” the understated teenager said.
“There’s a few tournaments coming up that I’ll work towards now, I just usually keep training normally until something big comes up and then when dad [coach Rod Schumacher] doesn’t have lessons we do a bit of extra work.”