2025 National Indigenous Tennis Carnival, saw East Arnhem send its first team to compete.

The team came together after a training program was hosted in Laynhapuy Homelands Community - Dhalingbuy back in February.

Evonne Goolagon Foundation past participant and coach, & First Nations Advisory Group Member - Adam Lasky, Emily Carroll - TNT, Ben Cunningham - TNT and GPTC head coach - Nicky Mayer, visited Dhalingbuy to work with the Laynhapuy Homelands Youth Workers based around East Arnhem.  Such an amazing opporunity for our Homeland participants to learn how to deliver tennis back in their community.

From here a team of six homleand kids, and two from Nhulunbuy, plus four youth workers were selected to travel to Darwin to compete in the NITC.  For some kids they had never been on a flight to Darwin before.  The team competed in the Red Ball category.  The kids from the bush went from just hitting balls back to thinking and competing strategically.  The youth workers were able to translate so that all participants could understand the game plan.

The redball divsion was made up of eight teams from around the NT.  After seven rounds the East Arnhem kids had come out winners!  For head coach Nicky Mayer, to watch the progress of kids learning to hit within the confines of lines was overwhelmingly successful. And to walk away with a win was the icing on the cake.

The team participated in Cultural exhanges, met kids and officials from every state of Australia. They met Evonne Goolagong and won the hearts of the officials.

We would like to thank Tennis Australia, Tennis NT, Laynhapuy Homelands and Rio Tinto for the opportunity to participate in this event.

Bring on 2026.