25 August 2024 | Tennis NT

112 kids representing every state and territory of Australia competed for the historic Bruce Cup trophy for the last 7 days, across both the Darwin International Tennis Centre in Marrara and Gardens Tennis Club at Mindil Beach.

The Bruce Cup is a round robin competition with Singles and Doubles matches, it’s a wonderful opportunity for kids to represent the NT in an Australia-wide competition in a team environment, while learning new skills on and off the court. Hosting this event in the NT is a privilege which only comes around once every 8 years. Teams from cooler climates definitely needed a little time to adjust to the heat and humidity, we think a record number of ice-creams were consumed this week!

The NT team faced off against the toughest teams in the competition over the first days of the event and were proud to out-perform last year’s results in terms of competitiveness. The team of 14 girls and boys came together with kids from Darwin, Palmerston and Alice Springs. Their team managers Leanne Usher and Andy Bhardwaj were delighted by how they came together as a team and showed tireless support of each other as teammates.

The Australian School Sports Championships 2024 ended with team NT coming in 8th place, a lot of memorable experiences, and a lot of fight shown from the whole team.

Thank you to all of the kids who participated and their team managers. Also many thanks to all of the additional people who supported this important event on the tennis pathway! Players’ families, families who billeted kids, coaches, and of course massive thanks to School Sport Education NT for organising this massive event!

The event hosting torch has passed to Victoria for the 2025 event, which will be a cracker! Ballarat in regional Victoria will be playing host to the “School Sport Australia Games” in October 2025 – essentially all sports coming together in an Olympics style event including tennis.

2024 full results to be posted by School Sports Education Australia.