Tamworth's Taya Powell heads into the 2021 North West Championships with a different title to last year but the same attitude she always has.
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The title is defending champion and the attitude is: "Go out there and rip in."
The tennis player said she wasn't feeling any extra pressure heading into the 2021 event but knew the nerves would kick in on court.
"It's not as much pressure, it's just... I'm very competitive. It's just the want to win and stuff like that," Powell said.
Like all tennis players in the region, Powell has had a disrupted 2021 tournaments-wise due to covid.
That hasn't stopped her from knuckling down, though.
If anything, she thinks the break from tournaments has helped her game.
"I've still been hitting a lot," Powell said.
"Just before covid - before we went into this other lockdown again - I was doing really well at tournaments, winning most tournaments, but I feel like I'm hitting the ball better now.
"I've really been able to get into my training and focus and work on a couple things, so it's been good."
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For the most part she's been travelling to Gunnedah three days a week to work with coach Dale Martin.
That hasn't been possible for the past week with the floods in Gunnedah which have also forced the championships to be moved to Tamworth this weekend.
Matches will be played at Piallamore Rec Ground, Treloar Park and West Tamworth.
The championships commence early Saturday morning and kick start a busy couple of months for Powell.
The 15-year-old is headed to Ballarat for a tournament just before Christmas and then will return to Victoria for a tour of sorts.
She'll be playing three separate five-day tournaments over three weeks to get as much match time on grass courts as she can.
"It's going to be pretty full on," Powell said.
"I love playing on the grass and it's pretty hard to find any tournaments in NSW that has grass courts."
It's all part of a bigger picture with Powell hoping to attain a scholarship in the US after she finishes school.
"That's the plan," she said.
Ben Jaffrey
Ben is a content curator and journalist for The Land. He has been with ACM since 2015 and first worked at The Area News and then at the Northern Daily Leader. Ben first joined ACM Agri as a digital journalist for all seven agricultural mastheads in 2022 before shifting to The Land full-time in 2023.
Ben is a content curator and journalist for The Land. He has been with ACM since 2015 and first worked at The Area News and then at the Northern Daily Leader. Ben first joined ACM Agri as a digital journalist for all seven agricultural mastheads in 2022 before shifting to The Land full-time in 2023.
