Georgia Drummy sets sights on Junior Australian Open

The first steps of a career are usually big and always unchartered. Occasionally for parents those same steps can be even larger and sometimes less certain.

At 15 years old tennis player Georgia Drummy is like many others before her, where dreams of a promising future have been catapulted forward by a year that has seen her ranking at junior level take off on a bull run.

From a junior world rank of around 780 at the end of December 2014, the spiralling rise finally ran out of calendar year at 223 on December 31st.

When the ITF computer spilled out the most recent set of rankings as players tipped over 18 years old through the new year, Drummy became the 187th ranked junior player in the world.

Getting in under 200 is one goal achieved. But over the next three weeks qualification for the Junior Australian Open is ambitiously in her sights, another goal.

Main draw

Only 32 players gain entry into the junior qualifying event with the main draw comprising just 64 girls, half the size of the senior draw, which is 128 for the four Grand Slams. But before her tilt at the junior Slam the Mount Anville School teenager sits her first tough career exam, a debut in an ITF Grade 1 event, the top level of junior world tennis outside the four majors.

For a 15-year-old she has had her fair share of experiences. A tournament in Tunisia last June gave a different view on what travelling the world can occasionally throw up. It is one she would prefer not to be repeated.

Drummy was playing in a local ITF competition in Mahdia when a gunman emerged on the beach in Sousse, the next resort along the coast. By the time the police had shot him dead, Seifeddine Rezgui had killed 38 tourists, most of them Britons but among them three Irish citizens.

“Yeah, I was there when the shooting happened. We were the next resort away,” says Georgia. “I’m not sure how far away it was . . . under an hour. But they had police cars ready for us so that we’d all be safe. We were aware of it.

“I was playing my quarters and I finished my match. We usually walked to the hotel from the courts and I heard then that we were not being allowed to walk back.

‘The attack’

“I heard [from the organisers] that the attack had just happened and they told us not to walk back to the hotel because it was too dangerous . . . because they thought one guy was on the loose. Then they organised a tournament car take everyone to the hotel.

“They didn’t quite tell us much until the next day and then we started to read all about it on line. It was scary but . . . I felt staying in the resort was more dangerous and was thinking well a tennis club they would never attack. You kind of cleared your mind of all that was happening.

“We still had to play the doubles later that day. They said it was safe at that stage but they had police beside the courts in case anything happened.”

Life on the road. In another Under-18 Grade 4 ITF event in Cyprus the players were engulfed in clouds of dust and the competition organisers perversely decided that the tournament should continue as asthmatic players in the draw made their own calls and dived for cover.

The less experienced player might try to play in the dust storm or understandably panic when the police cars and men with guns begin to arrive at the official hotel.

That in part is what Australia is also about, feeling the ground, getting more experiences into the locker. Drummy won’t be 16 years old until April.

Her mother Aishling and father Victor, a former Munster interprovincial player and vice principal in St Gerard’s school in Bray, understand the nature of tennis and how young players begin the process.

Grooming their daughter for the top levels of tennis and allowing her off the leash to play in tournaments around the world is a team decision and in no small part a gamble on her ability. In that mother Aishling and father Victor are management. They might expect sand storms but no one expects a Tunisia.

“We were getting texts from our friends saying did you see what was happening in Tunisia,” says Victor. “I rang Ed Seator, who is Jenny Timotin’s coach. They were also out there at the time. I just said ‘Ed’. He said Georgia has just come off court, so I knew she was safe.

“Ed wasn’t aware what was going on. Just as I rang him he said he had to go because the organisers were calling them all in. He said ‘there is something happening’.

“Because of the internet, we probably knew more than he did. At one level it is a good thing for her to go to Tunisia because there are a lot of quality tournaments. The accommodation is good and then it’s also financially reasonable and it was on a hard court, which is her favourite surface.

“Then you go: ‘My God why did we put our daughter there?’ It was nerve wracking. But I suppose once it happened the security was so tight you knew nothing would happen.”

It will be her first time in Australia. The heat will be intense but her sure-fire year gives hope to this season where after the Junior Cert she can focus solely on cranking the ranking down even further.

At 187 in the world, she is one of the youngest if not the youngest Irish player to be ranked that highly and probably the youngest Irish girl to ever try and qualify for the junior Australian Open.

She’s now 5’ 10” and like her father is a lefty. By September and at 16-years-old, she wants to be in the top 100, which would be a staggering achievement. Big thinking has never hurt in the past.

‘More experience’

“I’ve moved up around 570 paces from 10 tournaments,” she says. “Yeah I’m happy with that. The first year I was still under 14 and getting used to playing girls that were under 17 years old whereas now I’ve more experience and I don’t get as nervous.

“This year has been very good, summer especially. Probably has been one of the best years I’ve had. Now this will be my first Grade 1 [event]. It’s going up a level and will be a challenge but it’s a good experience because next year I’ll be better prepared and I’ll know what it’s like among the top players.”

Tennis Ireland has faith in the Donnybrook player and is backing the trip. They will have looked at her match stats of 32 wins and 13 defeats, among those three tournament wins and a runner-up position.

“I didn’t think I’d get to 200 but now that I’ve gotten to there, my new goal is to get top 100 by maybe September,” she says. “It kind of depends on how many tournaments I get to play. I probably won’t get to play a lot until my Junior Cert in early June and after that I’ll be looking to play a lot more, travelling and hopefully playing in the other junior Grand Slams.”