Like Tyrell, these youngsters can also dream
TYRELL Thompson is the first Indigenous player to make the Ipswich Grammar School 1st IV.
Yet just three years ago he was like any of the kids having a hit for the first time at the Goolagong Foundation's Indigenous come-and-try day at Brassall yesterday.
Thompson was yesterday helping out coaching, watching others get the same thrill from meeting Evonne Goolagong Cawley he once did.
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"It gives them opportunities,'' he said. "I just liked playing. It was fun."
Now he travels to Melbourne for the Goolagong Foundation National camps every January.
"We get to go on some of the main courts, including the Rod Laver arena," Thompson said.
It is something young players usually only dream of.
Thompson's next goal is to get there as a player in the real thing - the Australian Open.
"I'll probably try to make a life out of it," Thompson said of where tennis could take him.
He could have few better role models than Goolagong Cawley.
While he wears the bright shorts favoured by current Aussie men's number two player Nick Kyrgios, he can appreciate the example she sets.
"She's one of a kind," Thompson said. "I've probably never seen her angry."
