Another Player Switches to Represent Australia

Written by: Staff on 29th December 2011

Another Player Switches to Represent Australia |

The female ranks in Australian tennis continue to grow at the expense of other nations. After Slovak-born Jarmila Gajdosova and Russia’s Anastasia Rodionova both changed nationality and Jelena Dokic has played a game of to and fro between Serbia and Australia, New Zealand’s Sacha Jones has followed the trend.

Jones, aged 21 and currently placed 274 on the WTA computer, was New Zealand’s second ranked player and has already represented the nation at Fed Cup. She has dual nationality as her father is Australian. Ironically Auckland-born Jones will play on the charity of a wild card in next week’s WTA calendar opener, the ASB Classic in her hometown.

Officially the switch will take effect next week after but the International Tennis Federation has acknowledged ratification will be accepted.

Basically, Jones wants to take advantage of the greater facilities and backing on offer from Tennis Australia. She said: The decision has been a very difficult one for me to make. I’m very grateful for the support that Tennis New Zealand has given to my career to date but, if I want to achieve my goals, I believe that being involved in the Australian program will give me the best opportunity to do it.

Although she is also only expected to receive minimum financial support from Tennis Australia until improving her ranking, Jones will come under greater consideration for wildcard invitations to Australian tournaments.

“Ultimately, this is the decision of the athlete,” said Tennis Australia’s Head of Professional Tennis, Todd Woodbridge.

“Half of Sacha’s family is Australian and she’s always spent a lot of time here. She approached us this year about joining the Australian pathway and we welcome her to our programs.”

Tennis New Zealand chief executive Steve Johns said the 21-year-old’s decision came as a shock. We were very surprised and disappointed. There’s been a reasonable amount of our money invested in Sacha’s career .

“I think she’d made up her mind but we certainly did try and get her to change her mind. But we quickly realized that she’s a professional athlete and, yes, while we’d like New Zealand to feature in her plans, at the end of the day she’s looking after the best interests of her career.”

But Johns added: She is still a Kiwi and our door is open to her if she decides to move back to New Zealand in the future.”

Topics: Sacha Jones