Empowering Your Journey: A Personal Perspective

Are you a student-athlete dreaming of securing a scholarship at a US college to pursue your passion for tennis while earning a degree? Look no further, as Your Future USA is here to help you with this journey from providing you to advice and support to maximizing your scholarship opportunities and guiding you through the college application process.

I started thinking about my college tennis journey started when I was in high school. I played tennis from the age of 6 and participated in all levels of junior tennis in Australia. I was able to achieve a top 500 Junior ITF ranking and was a top 10 player for my age group in Australia over many years.

I considered many options for the next stage of my tennis career but always wanted to ensure I had a strong studies behind for the future. As a result I was determined to stay in school, and not home school, and then use this as a basis for degree studies in the US. I was fortunate to get some good advice and coaching along the way which really helped maximize my potential. This empowered me to pursue the US College option for the next stage of my life.

My strong tennis and academic record, at that time completing a SAT test with a good score, ensured that I was able to be offered a number of College Scholarships and was accepted at East Carolina University. Unfortunately due to timing issues with with NCAA certification I had to revert to attending one of the best Junior Colleges in the US: Eastern Florida State College. My Full Qualifier status come though in the Spring and I competed on on one of the best NJCAA College  roster, attending National Championships and achieving a National NJCAA ranking of 7 for singles and 4 for double. Unfortunately in the spring of that year Covid, I had to come back to Australia (and did quarantine!), ECU abolished their Men's Program so I did not have that option, and both tennis and studies were disrupted. This was a difficult time but taught me a lot about myself and the value of resilience.

However, as the Covid crisis subsided I returned to the USA and was able to transfer to another NCAA Division 1 College in Texas: Abilene Christian University. The was a great move and I experience excellent academic and tennis outcome for my career. In Texas I played at all the top Universities, participated in a National Championship, and was awarded many Western Athletic Conference Awards including Men's Player of the Year in 2023. I graduated in 2024 with a Bachelor of Science, Kinesiology and Sport Management. I was truly blessed to experience being a college athlete, have learned many lessons, and look forward to stage of my journey.