Tennis great hits town
THE Grafton City Tennis Club was a hive of activity yesterday as more than 100 kids took part in an Indigenous Tennis Come and Try Day hosted by tennis legend Evonne Goolagong-Cawley.
Goolagong said she was thrilled at the turnout and would be helping promising youngsters by supplying Dunlop racquets and assistance with coaching fees. The tennis great, who won four Australian Opens, two Wimbledons and a French Open, said she started out with a bat cut out of an apple crate.
She said the idea of yesterday's event, run in part by the Evonne Goolagong Foundation, was not simply to get Koori kids involved in tennis.
In accordance with the federally-funded Learn Earn Legend program, it encouraged kids to stay in school and achieve their dreams.
Goolagong-Cawley won the women's North Coast championships held in Grafton in 1966, 1968 and 1969 and ran into some familiar faces yesterday, including a former ball girl (see page 2) and an umpire.
