The OG: Australia’s Billie Jean King Cup Orange Woman | 12 April, 2025 | All Information | Information and Options | Information and Occasions

Brisbane, QLD, Australia, 12 April 2025 | Matt Trollope

Emerson Jones revealed she was barely nervous and wasn’t certain what to anticipate when chosen because the Tradition Amp Australian Billie Jean King Cup workforce’s Orange Woman for this week’s Qualifiers occasion in Brisbane.

However the 16-year-old has completely soaked within the expertise because the Aussie workforce constructed in the direction of competing at Pat Rafter Enviornment.

“The workforce’s actually nice – the women and everybody are so good and welcoming,” Jones informed tennis.com.au.

“Attending to hit with these high girls has been actually nice for me. I feel we’re going to an escape room tonight, so we’re all fairly enthusiastic about that. Attending to exit to dinner with them, staying with them, hitting, having lunch with them, it’s all been actually nice for me to hang around with these kinds of ladies.

“Watching Maya [Joint] and Kim [Birrell compete in singles] yesterday, they tried their hardest and you may actually see that, so I feel it was actually inspirational for me to observe.”

Jones, the world No.1 junior who has additionally earned a top-300 WTA rating, has loved listening to her teammates’ tales of their recollections as Orange Woman.

“Somebody talked about earlier that Kim was watching 4 hours of their follow when she was Orange Woman and practically fell asleep,” Jones laughed.

Birrell confirmed this was true.

“I don’t know if I ought to say on digital camera,” she laughed, “however Mol [former captain Alicia Molik] has introduced it up a number of instances.

“There was just one court docket, so I didn’t get to hit that a lot that week, and with jet-lag on the primary couple of days, I used to be sitting on the court docket watching I feel my fourth follow back-to-back, which I used to be completely loving, however there was a second the place I began to get slightly bit drained, and somebody received a video of me like nodding slightly bit to sleep, after which jerking myself awake.

She added, with amusing: “Mol likes to deliver that up each time she will.”

A reflective headspace

Birrell was the Orange Woman for Australia’s 2015 tie in ‘s-Hertogenbosch towards Netherlands, a green-and-gold workforce captained by Molik and that includes Sam Stosur, Casey Dellacqua, Jarmila Wolfe and Olivia Rogowska. Inside a 12 months, she was a fully-fledged member of the workforce, debuting towards Slovakia in Bratislava.

It was every week that had a major influence on Birrell, and a decade later she’s having fun with the chance to welcome Jones into the fold in the same means.

READ MORE: Birrell thrilled to “smash by means of” high 100 aim

“I simply bear in mind how warmly they embraced me [in 2015] and I completely liked each second. They made me really feel like I used to be actually a part of the workforce,” Birrell mentioned. “Then I truly received to be part of the workforce the next 12 months, so I undoubtedly felt a lot extra snug, having had these experiences.

“It’s actually cool to replicate on how I felt at the moment of my life and hope that I might be considerably of a optimistic affect on [Emerson] and her profession. It’s been actually enjoyable having her round – a lot of recent, younger vitality.”

Storm Hunter has additionally loved the prospect to replicate, due to Jones’ presence.

“My Orange Woman expertise was in 2013 once we performed Switzerland,” mentioned the 30-year-old, who fondly remembers staying on Lake Como, a stone’s throw throughout the Italian border from the tie in Chiasso.

“Taking part in and coaching amongst my idols that I grew up watching on TV, to be surrounded by them within the coaching surroundings and never essentially simply on court docket, however having the off-court conversations and connecting, was such an incredible expertise.

“That’s when Ash Barty made her debut as effectively, and he or she ended up sealing the tie for us, which was actually cool to be part of that second.”

Hunter mentioned that following her stint as Orange Woman, it turned a major aim to earn her quantity and grow to be a part of the Australian workforce. And that’s precisely what occurred – Hunter was chosen as a part of the four-player Aussie squad which travelled to Hobart to tackle Russia in February 2014.

Orange Woman defined

Simply to make clear, the Australian workforce Orange Woman just isn’t a younger participant who clothes in head-to-toe orange, squeezes orange juice for the workforce or hails from Orange, NSW. As Billie Jean King Cup workforce stalwart Nicole Pratt explains, it’s a job designed to immerse the teen within the workforce and its tradition, serving to them expertise every little thing enjoying members do.

“At completely different instances, we want them to get out and practise. We’d like them to place within the hours,” Pratt informed tennis.com.au. “So they stunning a lot must do no matter’s required. Hey, are you able to get on the market and serve slightly extra to that participant? Are you able to hit some returns?

“I do know after I was enjoying, we’d give them little duties that had been considerably annoying – you’d be like, ‘hey, are you able to go choose up our racquets? Are you able to go get us lunch? Are you able to go purchase us a espresso?’ However I feel through the years we’ve kind of moved away from that, simply because we’ve got extra employees.

“We get to additionally see the professionalism of the place they’re at, as effectively, and the place we will provide some recommendation, both to them all through the week or to their teaching groups afterwards.

“I feel that actually assists in a participant’s growth.”

Joint is a main instance of how worthwhile this expertise is to that growth. Simply 5 months in the past she was the workforce’s Orange Woman on the 2024 Billie Jean King Cup Finals in Malaga, Spain, a possibility she relished.

“It was a large aim of mine, after I was the Orange Woman, to make the workforce. However I feel it was actually good expertise for me to have the ability to be with the workforce, however not have the stress of performing,” she laughed.

“So I simply received to see how every little thing labored and the way the coaching labored, and simply be surrounded by such nice gamers. And with Sam and Pratty, all of the assist employees, and everybody, it was simply so good to fulfill them.

“So I’m actually glad I’m right here [in Brisbane this week] formally on the workforce and I can’t wait – I hope I get to play, but when not, I’m glad to only assist.”

Previous, current and future

Joint was certainly chosen to play, one thing she discovered on Wednesday – the identical day she was formally offered along with her Australian workforce jacket by tennis legend Lesley Bowrey.

Bowrey was an unique member of the Aussie Billie Jean King Cup workforce which competed at London’s Queen’s Membership within the competitors’s inaugural 12 months in 1963, when it was known as Fed Cup. She performed in a number of Cup-winning Australian groups through the Nineteen Sixties.

Bowrey went on to captain the aspect from 1994 to 2001 and it’s believed the Orange Woman idea was launched throughout this era.

RELATED: Debutant Joint receives workforce jacket from Aussie legend Bowrey

“We didn’t at all times have an Orange Woman,” she recalled. “It’s actually one thing that I’d in all probability realized from seeing the Davis Cup – they at all times had the younger participant in there to study lots. It was an actual expertise for them.

“It’s an actual deal with for any individual to be chosen to be an Orange Woman, to essentially study the ropes about what goes on, and workforce spirit.”

In a full-circle second, it was now-captain Stosur who launched Bowrey to the Australian workforce this week in Brisbane. Stosur had been chosen as Orange Woman at age 16 when Australia performed Switzerland at Royal Sydney Golf Course in 2001, with Bowrey as captain.

“It was nice for her to be across the ladies who had been there and accomplished that, to see how skilled they had been,” Bowrey recalled.

“Clearly at that age you study lots. We tried to show her what she wanted to do. Fairly powerful deal; she needed to do every little thing that I requested her to do, and I wasn’t at all times straightforward, in all probability (smiling). I feel it was an actual self-discipline week for her.

“It clearly stood her in good stead – she did effectively, she received a Grand Slam on the US Open, beating Serena Williams, and so she got here on.”

Stosur has clear recollections of that week at Royal Sydney below Bowrey, proper all the way down to the resort through which the workforce stayed in Coogee and the cafe they visited every morning by the seaside.

The workforce comprised Pratt, Molik, Evie Dominikovic and Rachel McQuillan. “I’ve nonetheless received a poster of all of them, signing it,” Stosur revealed. “Pratty truly left fairly a protracted message on there, saying ‘Expensive fellow Queenslander’ and ‘follow arduous and good issues will occur’. And my Dad quoted that to me quite a few instances over my profession.

“It was completely unbelievable to be the Orange Woman and see the way it all operated and have that have.

“Now [the cafe] is known as Barzura… a few years later I ended up dwelling in Coogee so I might reminisce on a regular basis.”

Pratt additionally remembers the week with Stosur in Sydney.

“I’d at all times encourage our Orange Ladies to verify they’d all of the gamers [in the team] signal one thing on the poster,” mentioned Pratt, who made her Australian workforce debut in 1994. “And funnily sufficient, Sam put her poster up on the wall, and her dad and mom mentioned ‘simply bear in mind what Pratty mentioned to you!’ in regards to the arduous work.

“It’s fairly phenomenal to think about the Orange Ladies that we’ve had through the years. They’ve gone on to grow to be, like Sam Stosur, a Grand Slam champion. Prime-10 gamers on the planet [like] Alicia Molik; she was an Orange Woman as effectively.

“We actually have a robust custom.”

Is it surreal to her that, all these years later, she now works alongside Stosur because the workforce’s coach?

“Yeah it’s,” replied Pratt, who enters her tenth 12 months because the Australian Billie Jean King Cup workforce coach.

“I in all probability had the identical emotions slightly bit with Alicia to be sincere, as a result of I coached Alicia in the direction of the back-end of her profession. The very fact she was captain after which I used to be coming in as coach… however equally [we were] enjoying friends. We’re all enjoying friends.

“To have such a robust relationship with each Alicia and Sam has made the transition straightforward for me, and I hope they are saying the identical factor about me.”