Tennis: Taya Powell earns place in US college through tennis scholarship

And though the 17-year-old is eager to begin her next great adventure, she admitted that her departure will likely be "bittersweet".

"I'm really excited, but I'm nervous and a bit sad," Powell said.

"I've never left the country, and I'm super close with my family. So that'll be hard, especially for Mum. She'll be struggling a bit, but she's really happy for me, because it's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."

The teenager will jet off for Boone, North Carolina, in January, where she has been accepted to Appalachian State University on a tennis scholarship.

There, tucked away in the state's northwest, she will participate in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) tennis competition which, over the last decade, has produced multiple ATP and WTA players.

"It's really opened up a pathway for the professionals who don't go straight into the circuit when they finish school," Powell said.

"Really good players win there, like Ben Shelton [the world number 17 who made it to the finals of the Australian and US Opens in 2023]. He won the NCAA singles title."

The Tamworth product first applied for scholarships through an agency called Study & Play USA. She was contacted by a number of US colleges, but Appalachian State was near the top of her list.

At the university, Powell will begin a rigorous training program and competition schedule, which she will balance with a degree in speech pathology.

The reason she elected to pursue that particular field of study, Powell said, was due to a family connection.

"My dad's sister is a speech pathologist, and she owns a business in Port Macquarie," she said.

"I really liked the look of speech pathology, I looked at all sorts of things and it seemed like the most interesting."

Having taken up tennis competitively at the age of 12, Powell's rise through the ranks has been swift.

The sport runs in the Powell family blood. Taya's father, Luke, played at a "pretty high level", as did his parents. But Taya, it's safe to say, has gone further in the sport than any of her relatives.

And she credited a good part of her recent development to the coaches at local gym Snake Athletic, with whom she has been working since the age of 13.

"I started going with Mum ... but it was more just for my fitness. Going to Snake has always been to maintain fitness and strength," Powell said.

"I've been doing sports-specific PT with Jayden [Eunson]. I started doing that with him to work on tennis-specific agility, reactions, that sort of stuff.

"It's really helped my tennis."

Until she leaves, Powell intends to keep up a strict training schedule to ensure she starts as well as possible in the US.

But it will not be all hard work once she lands. The Tamworth product is eager to explore as much of her new home as possible, which the travel-heavy nature of the NCAA tournaments will allow her to do.

It's safe to say, however, that a part of Powell will remain at home with her parents and three younger brothers.

"One of them is a bit older, he's 15, he realises that I'm going and he's a bit sad," she said.

"The other two don't really care. They know I'm leaving, but it hasn't sunk in for them. But I'm going to miss them a lot."

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