Sophia Kawane
My name is Sophia Kawane and I’m currently 11 years old.
I was born on Thursday Island, a tiny island in the Torres Strait just north of the tip of QLD.
I am an Indigenous Australian and am also a mix of Papua New Guinean and English.
In 2009, my family moved from Thursday Island to the South of Cairns.
I was only 2 months old, my older sister Giselle was 3 years old. Mum and dad wanted to give us girls a good life with plenty of opportunities which unfortunately Thursday Island could not offer at the time. My mum and dad bought a house in Bentley Park as the suburb had a few schools around to choose from as well as lots of community clubs and organisations close by that we could be a part of.
My little sister Jolie was born in 2014 and our family was now complete. Because my father works as a FIFO worker, mum always kept us girls busy so we wouldn’t miss him so much. We would do lots of activities to keep us happy, active and healthy. As soon as I was old enough, I signed up to Gymnastics at Southside Gymnastics club and enjoyed doing that for over a year. I then joined the local dance club, Dance Junction, at Edmonton and loved learning Jazz & Ballet for the next 5yrs. During this time, I also joined Mulgrave Little Athletics club out at Gordonvale and loved my 5yrs with them too.
By the time I was in Kindergarten, I was doing Lil Athletics on the weekend and dance classes a couple times a week. My older sister and I wanted to try out Tennis, so mum signed us up for 1 lesson a week at the local Edmonton Tennis Club. 6 months on, my sister and I were training full time with Tennis and had to unfortunately drop out of Little Athletics and Dance as we had no time to spare anymore. My love for Tennis grew and my ability and techniques got better. I’m a tall, strong girl for my young age so I had to start training with the older kids. By a few years of learning the sport, I was now training 5 mornings before school and 7 afternoons a week. When you love and enjoy something, it’s not hard to keep attending but I had to learn at a young age how to juggle all my responsibilities with school, sport and family. I love all the friends I get to make and meet playing sports. I have plenty of friends from lots of schools, especially from South Cairns.
Tennis has given me amazing opportunities. I have played as a representative of my club, school, Cairns, FNQ and North Qld. I have met and played with some great tennis players and in 2017, when I was 7 years old I was selected into the Evonne Goolagong Foundation.
I have been lucky to attend 3 E.G.F Tennis Development State Camps. 2017 in Adelaide and 2018 and 2019 in Sydney. Unfortunately, Covid upset plans of what would have been a great year of Tennis for me in 2020. I’ve continued to train hard in tennis and study hard at school. This year I am in grade 6, am a School leader and Sports Captain at my school.
A recent Tennis highlight for me was getting selected into the Peninsula Tennis team for 10-12 year olds. I will have to travel to Brisbane in August to compete at the ‘QLD School Sport 10-12 Years Tennis State Championships. I know it will be very hard playing against the stronger Metro players but I’m looking forward to the experience and challenge.