Bella courts her amazing US opportunity

Torrumbarry, Victoria: Population 257 (give or take).

Grand Canyon University, Phoenix, Arizona: Student on-campus population 25,000 (minimum).

So what do you think was the biggest adjustment for then 17-year-old Bella Crossman when she arrived at GCU (aka The Antelopes/Lopes) in 2024 as a freshman looking to conquer the US collegiate tennis circuit?

Obvious, you’d think. And be wrong.

Well, partly wrong. Bella admits she did find living on a gated campus with 24,999 others a bit overwhelming – until she got her social life activated.

But the biggest hiccup the Torrumbarry tyro faced when she landed was the imperial system.

Not colonisation, mathematically.

The Americans, even though their dollar is metric, do everything else in imperial – you need to know your 12 times table.

Bella was pretty sure the table was where you sat for dinner.

And then there was Excel, she’d never used it, hardly heard of it – except she excels on the tennis court – and that was another whole learning process.

However, once she got on top of those unexpected challenges there has been no holding Bella back.

As the newbie on her university’s roster of eight – that’s freshman in Yankee speak, as previously noted – Bella was slotted in at number four and expected to deliver pretty bloody quickly to hang onto that slot, let alone climb the competitive ladder.

Which she did.

With two college seasons under her belt – as a freshman and then sophomore – she finished as GCU’s number one player and heads back to her junior year as the girl to beat.

“I had been thinking about college as a next big step from back around Year 10,” Bella says.

“I have been playing tennis since I could pick up a racquet, probably when I was three, and as I got older I could see the opportunities it might offer,” she says.

“I was playing tennis here and in Melbourne, and competing in tournaments, including ITF events and more and more people were talking about the advantages of going through the US college system, getting a degree first and then expanding onto the tour.

“Even while I am here on summer holidays I am studying – I have a key assignment due two hours after I finish this interview, and am playing an ITF tournament in Brisbane in a few weeks.”

Getting around for a game has become second nature for Bella.

Her university’s tennis program has recently transitioned into the Western Mountain Conference – which is NCAA Division One. That contains 300 colleges, the cream of the country, and GCU just finished in the top 50.

Western Mountain covers California, Texas, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Hawaii but the players also compete against other schools – recently Bella was in Alabama playing Auburn, one of the highest ranked sporting programs in the country.

The travel deal is anything around four hours (and a bit) is done in the team bus. But being Phoenix based means most games are a flight.

“We can play anywhere between one and three matches a week, depending on draws, and we are also committed to three gym sessions a week, two conditioning sessions, yoga and practice four hours a day if we’re not playing,” Bella explains.

“On top of that we have to maintain a high GPA score to stay in the program – mine is currently 3.8 (4.0 is perfect) and our classes are set up that we do two classes a day, four days a week,” she says.

“But if games and travel get in the way, it’s our job to keep up academically, so it doesn’t leave a lot of time.”

So is it all worth it?

Absolutely she says.

“This is exactly where I want to be at this point in my life. I know I will come home to Echuca-Moama and Torrumbarry, but right now this is the best place I can be,” Bella adds.

“The whole experience has been so welcoming and being exposed to so much talent on the court, with the fantastic coaches we have here – in just one eight-month period I put on nearly 6kg of muscle – has lifted my game.

“Especially my mental game, I play so much smarter now, I assess players, I use tactics, it has made me better all-round.

“Coached all my life by my father Andrew, some of it struck me as weird, such as spending the night before visualising how you are going to play the next day, and we do a lot of scouting – after every match we have to submit, the same day, a report on what we did right and wrong, what the opposition did right and wrong, and what we can do better next time.

“The team has a number of pacts, of serious goals, including keeping our GPA average above 3.0 – the whole culture is designed to make you compete, make you achieve.

“So yes, I will finish my degree and then have a serious crack on the tour and really find out if I am good enough to make a go of it.”

Not surprisingly, Bella is the only Australian on the GCU roster. But incredibly, there is also only one American. She also plays with an Argentinean, Egyptian, Portuguese, German, Romanian, Italian and Pole.

None of those use the imperial system either, but Bella’s head start was English as her first language.