27 January 2023 | Tennis Victoria

Anna Gorksi is the Head Coach of Smash Tennis Australia. Anna offers a wide range of tennis coaching programs for both kids and adults operating out of Williams Landing Tennis Club. The programs range from Hot Shots programs to Elite Young Guns Squads, Cardio Tennis, Ladies Social Mornings, Adult Group Lessons and more.

As a female coach in a predominantly male dominated environment, Anna uses her wealth of knowledge and experiences over the past 15 years to provide a fun and inclusive atmosphere for all. Watching the Australian Open when Anna was in Russia as a young girl sparked her interest in tennis. Seeing Steffi Graff and Monica Sellers inspired her to pick up the racquet.

“Watching the Australian Open in the freezing cold in Russia to now calling Melbourne my home – I wouldn’t have dreamt it.”

“I started playing tennis where Marat Saffin started playing and met a few people on tour and sort of fell into coaching.”

After moving to Melbourne in her early twenties, Anna moved to Dubai for 10 years where she was a sports teacher and tennis coach. Since moving back to Melbourne, Anna started Smash Tennis Australia.
“Tennis has given me passion, it’s given me purpose.”

“Influencing young kids and making them feel that passion for the sport, because it is a wonderful sport. Watching them grow and develop and hearing from parents saying since taking up coaching, their school grades have gone up, their concentration levels are going up and that makes it all worthwhile.”

“It shows that we are actually influencing them beyond the court even if they aren’t planning on making it in a professional environment.”

“Watching everything come together is what it’s all about. Today, watching the Kids on Court, majority of them I have coached them since they were three or four and didn’t know how to hold a racquet and now they’re having rallies and they’re enjoying it and they’re getting quite serious about it, it’s fantastic.”

For Women and Girls Day, female coaches and their female players were invited on court. Today, Anna was one of the female coaches that brought her Kids on Court today.

Being a female coach in a predominantly male environment has had its hardships but seeing the change over the last decade has been inspiring.

“Back in the day, being a professional female coach was almost unheard of. When Emily Marasmo became a coach for Andy Murray, there was a shift in everyone’s mind.”

“Seeing female coaches increase over the years is definitely great, as it used to be very male dominated.”

Anna is thankful for the support female coaches have gotten in Australia over the years.

“The support of Tennis Australia in terms of the female coaching, the network, the workshops that we get, its phenomenal. I think without that, I don’t think most of us would be able to be in our position.”

“It is hard sometimes going up against male coaches, now things have definitely changed.

Seeing the number of female coaches coming through is amazing. We would love to have more younger girls coming in and taking it up but it is definitely moving in the right direction.”

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