Harry with Coach Scott.
11-year-old Harry Scroope is soon to be a household name.
Harry’s mum, Sophie, says she’s proud and excited to see his hard work pay off as he gets ready to represent the South Coast PSSA at Parramatta.
Children from across the Illawarra, South Coast, Queanbeyan and Yass areas were invited to participate.
Although Harry says he is excited to move onto the next step, he confessed to also being a little nervous.
“[Harry] has been playing tennis for many years and it’s one of those sports that you lose a lot before you start learning how to win,” says Sophie.
“I think he was very pleasantly surprised that he’d been able to kind of stick in the matches and convert enough of them to a win to get a spot on the team.”
Before attending Parramatta, Harry went to a competition held in Bomaderry near Ulladulla one week before Easter.
Playing such close matches on a calendar doesn’t fade the youngster, whose training schedule has been incredibly intensive, often playing three to four times a week over the past two years.
Sophie says Ulladulla competition, although designed to occur succinctly and provide a result, included many matches.
“He played eight matches and they had two pools, four A and four B,” she says.
“They took the top two from each pool, and then if you were third, they had to do a playoff.
From 9.00am to 3.00pm, Harry had already completed eight matches that day.
“They were a format that allowed it to happen quicker,” she says.
“This was the best of 10 points and then playing out a tie-break.”
From here, the Yass Public School student will be putting his skills to the test in Parramatta, which covers four days of matches.
Training with local tennis legend, Scott Eulenstein, since he was five years old, Sophie says he’s always enjoyed the sport. According to Scott, Harry’s hard work hasn’t gone unnoticed.
“He’s developed his game,” says Scott.
“He’s gone from having an array of shots to consistent shotmaking and plenty of power, so he’s taking his game to the next level.”
Harry has also represented Yass at JDS level, as well as in the Canberra Tennis League.
Tennis isn’t the soon to be 12-year-old’s only sport that he thrives in, and he will be travelling to Tamworth shortly after Paramatta after recently trying out for the South Coast AFL team.
“He can go from a one-man show to a team sport well,” says Sophie.
“He enjoys the team aspect as well.”
Harry is also a talented cross-country runner.
Playing as part of the South Coast team, Sophie says the word ‘team’ is still a different entity than what Harry is used to.
“You have a ranking and you represent your South Coast team in that ranking spot to try to help the team,” she says.
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