Mia Repac has faced the world’s best junior tennis players on the clay of Europe, and now she’s preparing to take to the hard surface of Melbourne Park.
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Competing in the Australian Championships, Repac will play on the same courts that her heroes Novak Djokovic and Maria Sharapova will grace at the Australian Open.
Playing in the U14 division, Mia will likely receive a top four seed and will be hoping to improve on her performance last year as a 12-year-old. The tournament takes place in the first week of December and is followed by the Australian Teams Championships, where Repac will represent NSW.
Repac is a determined youngster who plays every point down to the very last shot. Her love of Djokovic and Sharapova comes from their refusal to quit and ability to win rallies from seemingly unwinnable positions.
“I think she likes them because they’re fighters, it’s similar to how she plays, they’ll just play to the last point, they never give up, they keep fighting.” Mia’s father Milan said.
Mia has recently returned Europe where she played against some of the world’s best juniors. The tournaments were played on clay courts, a surface Australian juniors have very little exposure to at home.
“Most of the Australian kids struggled to adapt to playing on the clay courts, because all our training down here is on hard courts and synthetic grass. The ball’s a lot slower on clay and it doesn’t bounce as much as the surfaces down here.”
Despite the struggles, Mia performed admirably against opponents who had spent their entire lives playing on clay courts. She qualified for the last 16 in two of her singles tournaments and made one final and one semi-final in the doubles events.
Mia was recently able to apply some of the lessons learnt in Europe at the Australian Clay Court Championships in Canberra. Repac qualified for the semi-final of the singles tournament, which she lost in a third set tiebreaker. She went one step better in the doubles event, finishing as runner up.