Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to congratulate Samantha Stosur on her historic win in this year's US Tennis Open. It was an emphatic victory that will give a real boost to Australian tennis and, hopefully, spawn a new decade of future champions. Sam is the first Australian female to win a grand slam singles title since Evonne Goolagong took home the Wimbledon trophy in 1980, and the first Australian female to take home the US Open since Margaret Court in 1975. With Margaret Court winning 18 US open titles—five singles, five doubles and eight mixed doubles—over her career, Sam has a hard record to beat, but having won the US Open Doubles in 2005, she has two titles and is now on her way.

With her big serve and attacking hardcourt game, Sam had a remarkable tournament. Like all great tournament victories, the final is the icing on the cake after a hard fought two-week campaign. It should not be forgotten that in the third round Sam defeated Nadia Petrova 7-5 in the third set after a three-hour-16-minute battle. The second set tie-break of 17-15 is the longest in any major in the history of women's tennis. Sam showed great class in the final against three-time champion Serena Williams. When Serena lost her cool, Sam kept hers. No doubt the 23,000 fans packed into the Arthur Ashe Stadium were hoping for a hometown victory, particularly on the symbolic 10th anniversary of September 11, but they cannot be left in any doubt that the best player on the day won. Sam came to win and never let the sense of occasion disrupt her game plan. With a $1.8 million winners' cheque and a rising world ranking, this 27-year-old Queenslander has the tennis world at her feet. Long gone are the memories of last year's loss in the French Open final, for now Sam is a grand slam champion. No-one will ever be able to take that away from her. Many people in my electorate of Kooyong are great sport lovers and participants, and they join me in congratulating Sam on her wonderful sporting achievement. It is a victory that will be celebrated by hundreds of tennis players in the local clubhouses of Grace Park, Kew Heights, Kew, North Kew, Hawthorn, South Hawthorn, Deepdene, Canterbury, Balwyn Park, North Balwyn, Willison Park, Camberwell Junction, East Camberwell, Camberwell United, City of Camberwell, South Camberwell, St Dominic's Parish, Boroondara Tennis Centre, Sacred Heart and Victoria Park. No doubt my friends at the home of tennis, the Kooyong Tennis Club, will also be celebrating for Sam is a welcome visitor down there. Congratulations again, Sam Stosur. You have done us all proud and deserve every accolade that comes your way for this historic sporting achievement.

Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Typically, when we rise in this place to praise a sporting hero it is in praise of a man. When I was a boy, my focus was on distance events so I looked up to people like long distance runner Steve Moneghetti, triathlete Greg Welch and race walker Simon Baker. As a participant in each of these sports, I admired the ability of these men to develop and sustain their physical and mental ability and to push the boundaries.

Not often enough in this place do we talk about the sporting achievements of women. It is harder for women to excel at sport at an elite level. There are not many sports that women are able to play at an elite level for which they are paid a sufficient amount to dedicate their life to the sport. There are few women's sports that attract television coverage and the associated sponsorship and endorsements. Smaller still are the number of women's sports that attract prime time television coverage and the even more lucrative sponsorship deals. Just a handful of women's sports pay their athletes equivalent to men.

Tennis is an exception. In Australia, we have had a long history of champion female tennis players, from Margaret Molesworth, who won the first-ever women's title at the Australasian Championships, now the Australian Open, in 1922, through to players in the modern era such as Margaret Court, dominant in the 1960s and 1970s, and Evonne Goolagong Cawley, until now our most recent grand slam champion with her 1980 Wimbledon title.

Now we can add 27-year-old Samantha Stosur to the list. Stosur's story is one that is pretty inspirational in itself. Her early career focussed on doubles. Sam was ranked No. 1 in the world in doubles by 2006. But she contracted Lyme disease in 2007. It was devastating. She was out of tennis for close to a year and a return to the game was difficult as the illness had left her weakened.

On her return, Sam had a renewed focus on her singles game and managed to creep up the rankings. We thought her loss in the 2010 French Open final might have been the closest she would ever come to winning a grand slam. But this year Sam demonstrated that she has the physical and mental strength to succeed at the elite level by winning the US Open. My staff had been talking in the office about little else apart from Sam for days leading up to her victory. I managed to watch the final few points myself. Not surprisingly, many Australians were late to work that morning. Famously, Sam remembers staying home from school to watch her idol Pat Rafter winning his title in 1997. Now, young Australian girls have seen one of their own achieve this feat. They can see that women are capable of achieving at an elite level too. So, Sam, well done on your victory and may this be the first of many.

While I am speaking on the topic of sports participation, I use this chance to acknowledge the active sportswomen in my office who have helped me prepare these remarks: basketball and hockey player Louise Crossman, and netball and tennis player Angela Winkle. In the ACT, I also recognise the efforts of Karen Hardy to increase the participation of women in sport. Recognising the benefits of team sports, Karen has established her own scholarship. Having attained life membership of her hockey club, Karen no longer needs to pay fees so she is using her saved fees to personally pay for mothers returning to play hockey. Karen's scholarship aims to keep people, particularly women, playing sport. The benefit of sport is not for winning but as a place to come together with people of all different ages, backgrounds and skill levels. Karen describes her team as:

… a place where we can come and not be anything but ourselves. We don't have to be mothers or partners or workers or students or daughters. All we are is us.'

This camaraderie and shared experience—what some have called social capital—helps link people together and build bonds of trust. Yet in the period from 1993 to 2007, the share of Australians participating in organised sport fell from 33 per cent to 27 per cent. In this environment, world-beating sports stars such as Samantha Stosur and local sporting heroes such as Karen Hardy should be particularly applauded.

Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to congratulate Sam Stosur on her outstanding achievement in the US Open Tennis Championships as the 2011 women's singles champion. Like many other people on the Gold Coast I am extremely proud to call Sam one of our own. Her recent win in the US Open will inspire young sports men and women around the country to pursue their dreams.

Our new champion was only eight years old when she discovered her passion for tennis. At 13 years of age, Sam represented Australia in the World Youth Cup in Jakarta, Indonesia. This marked the first time she would experience the pressure and excitement of becoming a tennis pro.

During the US Open in 2007 Sam was unable to continue past the first round because her health had deteriorated after she was diagnosed with Lyme disease and viral meningitis. This could not have happened at a worse time for the aspiring tennis player, who at the time was rocketing up the ranks. It is amazing that Sam was able to return to the same competition some four years later to walk away triumphant as the world champion.

In the year 2000, Sam was ranked 682 in the world for the singles division and in only 11 years Sam has catapulted herself, through hard work and determination, to be ranked in the top 10 of the world's best female tennis athletes. This is a truly inspirational story for all aspiring sports men and women. It proves that with determination and passion anything is possible even when faced with life's obstacles.

The Gold Coast in particular has a proud sporting culture which has no doubt helped cultivate and nurture the determination and passion that Sam clearly has. Sam is the second woman on the Gold Coast in the space of a week to impress locals, with hurdles champion Sally Pearson also claiming the top honour in her field.

The Gold Coast is home to a number of sporting clubs, including the Titans Rugby League Club, the Gold Coast Suns AFL team, the Blaze Basketball team and numerous surf lifesaving clubs, to name just a few. There is a large outdoor and sporting culture in my electorate and on the Gold Coast in general and by embracing sport more generally we move our children away from their iPads, mobile phones, computers and TV onto the fields and courts and into the pool and surf. Healthy lifestyles are therefore instilled in our children and the inspirational sporting success of Sam Stosur will certainly provide another positive role model for them.

Reflecting on Sam's tremendous effort I am again reminded of our young sporting heroes of tomorrow. Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting with several of these young men and women in my electorate, as I presented them with their Local Sporting Champions certificates. These individuals were the recipients of the most recent round of Local Sporting Champions grants, where they each received a sporting grant payment of $500 from the Australian Sports Commission. The passion these young men and women have shown for their respective sports is commendable; many of them train within their sporting disciplines almost every day and spend hours attending these sessions in an effort to improve their skills. I would also like to take this opportunity to commend their parents and those who spend their time, effort and financial resources to ensure their children reach their sporting potential, particularly when many parents on the southern Gold Coast are struggling with increased hours of work and the increase in costs of living. All of the schools on the southern Gold Coast offer a variety of sporting programs. In addition to this, the Palm Beach Currumbin State High School offers sporting excellence programs for gifted and talented students, giving them the opportunity to excel in their sporting discipline in a supportive educational environment. While these students are at school they are taught by a combination of school staff members and professional coaches in their particular sporting discipline.

Achieving excellence in sport involves commitment and dedication and I am sure that Sam Stosur's US Open win will inspire the young people of the nation to not only excel in sport but also to take part in sport for the other benefits, including making friends and, most importantly, having fun. In closing, I again congratulate Sam Stosur as this years US Open women's singles champion and hope that her success will be replicated by countless more Australians in all sporting fields. Well done, Sam.

Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sam Stosur is another Australian sporting hero, whose achievements are highlighted by her dedication to overcoming adversity and reaching the pinnacle of the tennis world. As we know, Sam was born in Brisbane and moved to Adelaide when she was just 6 years old after the family home and business were devastated by floods on the Gold Coast. At the age of eight, Sam was given her first tennis racquet as a present and she showed immediate promise. She entered her first international tournament at the age of 13 in the World Youth Cup in Jakarta, and this was to be just the start of a professional tennis career. At 14 Sam entered the Queensland Academy of Sport and by 16 was enrolled in the Australian Institute of Sport. She clearly showed so much determination, commitment and, clearly, talent.

Sam really came to the attention of the Australian sporting public when she reached the fourth round of the Australian Open tournament in 2006, but by then she was already well known in tennis circles as a great doubles player, having reached world number one doubles status with her partner Lisa Raymond. Her win in the 2011 US Open, I would think, is especially sweet to her given her battle to overcome the horrendous impacts of Lyme disease. I can only imagine what sort of determination and courage it has taken for her to continue with her sport. In 2007, Sam suffered from lethargy and pain that remained undiagnosed during that year's Wimbledon and US Open but was finally diagnosed later in the year. Lyme disease, as we know, is cause by an infection spread by the bite of a tick and in severe cases can cause long-term disability, so this is not a simple issue. In Sam's case, most of 2007 and early 2008 were just a battle, but her recovery was a certainty given that she is a strong young woman She is determined and she is dedicated and in 2009 Sam started to reap the rewards of that. She made a third round appearance at the Australian Open, reached the semi-finals of the French Open and won her maiden singles title in Osaka. She finished ranked 13th in the world in 2009.

I think 2010 is when Australia and Australians really got behind Sam as never before in her career. When she reached the final of the French Open, her first Grand Slam final, people Australia-wide realised that we had a serious contender here and it was perhaps then that Sam too realised that she was a serious contender. Although she was not to win that final, many of us followed her all the way. Australia shared her disappointment, but it was a disappointment that was borne with pride and dignity. In reaching the third round of both the French and Australian Opens in 2011, Sam continued to show great form and carried with her the hopes of this nation. It is fantastic to see that her great build-up has paid an ultimate dividend in the 2011 US Open.

She is the first Australian US Open women's winner since Margaret Court in 1973 and Australia's first female winner of a tennis major since Evonne Goolagong's triumph at Wimbledon in 1980. Once again, Sam carried the hopes of a nation, many of whom got up quite early to support the new champion that she would become. I think the strength that she showed when she was actually engaged in that match—many of us will never forget it. It was absolute determination. There was focus and there was fairness. I think she will go on and represent Australia with pride. Even though Wimbledon has been her toughest major venue, I hope her win has opened a floodgate for her and I hope that she has great confidence.

I congratulate Sam on her success to date. I wish her the best for the future. I also want to acknowledge her gracious acceptance of the trophy that she received and the very generous speech she gave which recognised her rival—at a time, perhaps, when others may not have done so. She showed the real Australian spirit and what a great young person she is in so many ways. I congratulate her and I hope that, as the previous member said, this inspires a lot of great young people in our nation to follow their dreams and their ambitions.

Main Committee adjourned at 13 : 01