Brisbane, QLD, Australia, 12 April 2025 | Matt Trollope
Emerson Jones revealed she was slightly nervous and wasn’t sure what to expect when selected as the Culture Amp Australian Billie Jean King Cup team’s Orange Girl for this week’s Qualifiers event in Brisbane.
But the 16-year-old has thoroughly soaked in the experience as the Aussie team built towards competing at Pat Rafter Arena.
“The team’s really great – the girls and everyone are so nice and welcoming,” Jones told tennis.com.au.
“Getting to hit with these top women has been really great for me. I think we’re going to an escape room tonight, so we’re all pretty excited about that. Getting to go out to dinner with them, staying with them, hitting, having lunch with them, it’s all been really great for me to hang out with these types of girls.
“Watching Maya [Joint] and Kim [Birrell compete in singles] yesterday, they tried their hardest and you could really see that, so I think it was really inspirational for me to watch.”
Jones, the world No.1 junior who has also earned a top-300 WTA ranking, has enjoyed hearing her teammates’ stories of their memories as Orange Girl.
“Someone mentioned earlier that Kim was watching four hours of their practice when she was Orange Girl and nearly fell asleep,” Jones laughed.
Birrell confirmed this was true.
“I don’t know if I should say on camera,” she laughed, “but Mol [former captain Alicia Molik] has brought it up a few times.
“There was only one court, so I didn’t get to hit that much that week, and with jet-lag on the first couple of days, I was sitting on the court watching I think my fourth practice back-to-back, which I was absolutely loving, but there was a moment where I started to get a little bit tired, and someone got a video of me like nodding a little bit to sleep, and then jerking myself awake.
She added, with a laugh: “Mol loves to bring that up whenever she can.”
A reflective headspace
Birrell was the Orange Girl for Australia’s 2015 tie in ‘s-Hertogenbosch against Netherlands, a green-and-gold team captained by Molik and featuring Sam Stosur, Casey Dellacqua, Jarmila Wolfe and Olivia Rogowska. Within a year, she was a fully-fledged member of the team, debuting against Slovakia in Bratislava.
It was a week that had a significant impact on Birrell, and a decade later she’s enjoying the opportunity to welcome Jones into the fold in a similar way.
READ MORE: Birrell thrilled to “smash through” top 100 goal
“I just remember how warmly they embraced me [in 2015] and I absolutely loved every second. They made me feel like I was really part of the team,” Birrell said. “Then I actually got to be a part of the team the following year, so I definitely felt so much more comfortable, having had those experiences.
“It is really cool to reflect on how I felt at that time of my life and hope that I can be somewhat of a positive influence on [Emerson] and her career. It’s been really fun having her around – lots of fresh, young energy.”
Storm Hunter has also enjoyed the chance to reflect, thanks to Jones’ presence.
“My Orange Girl experience was in 2013 when we played Switzerland,” said the 30-year-old, who fondly remembers staying on Lake Como, a stone’s throw across the Italian border from the tie in Chiasso.
“Playing and training amongst my idols that I grew up watching on TV, to be surrounded by them in the training environment and not necessarily just on court, but having the off-court conversations and connecting, was such an amazing experience.
“That’s when Ash Barty made her debut as well, and she ended up sealing the tie for us, which was really cool to be a part of that moment.”
Hunter said that following her stint as Orange Girl, it became a significant goal to earn her number and become part of the Australian team. And that’s exactly what happened – Hunter was selected as part of the four-player Aussie squad which travelled to Hobart to take on Russia in February 2014.
Orange Girl explained
Just to clarify, the Australian team Orange Girl is not a young player who dresses in head-to-toe orange, squeezes orange juice for the team or hails from Orange, NSW. As Billie Jean King Cup team stalwart Nicole Pratt explains, it’s a role designed to immerse the youngster in the team and its culture, helping them experience everything playing members do.
“At different times, we need them to get out and practise. We need them to put in the hours,” Pratt told tennis.com.au. “So they pretty much have to do whatever’s required. Hey, can you get out there and serve a little more to that player? Can you hit some returns?
“I know when I was playing, we’d give them little tasks that were somewhat annoying – you’d be like, ‘hey, can you go pick up our racquets? Can you go get us lunch? Can you go buy us a coffee?’ But I think over the years we’ve sort of moved away from that, just because we have more staff.
“We get to also see the professionalism of where they’re at, as well, and where we can offer some advice, either to them throughout the week or to their coaching teams afterwards.
“I think that really assists in a player’s development.”
Joint is a prime example of how valuable this experience is to that development. Just five months ago she was the team’s Orange Girl at the 2024 Billie Jean King Cup Finals in Malaga, Spain, an opportunity she relished.
“It was a massive goal of mine, when I was the Orange Girl, to make the team. But I think it was really good experience for me to be able to be with the team, but not have the pressure of performing,” she laughed.
“So I just got to see how everything worked and how the training worked, and just be surrounded by such great players. And with Sam and Pratty, all the support staff, and everyone, it was just so nice to meet them.
“So I’m really glad I’m here [in Brisbane this week] officially on the team and I can’t wait – I hope I get to play, but if not, I’m glad to just support.”
Past, present and future
Joint was indeed selected to play, something she found out on Wednesday – the same day she was officially presented with her Australian team jacket by tennis legend Lesley Bowrey.
Bowrey was an original member of the Aussie Billie Jean King Cup team which competed at London’s Queen’s Club in the competition’s inaugural year in 1963, when it was called Fed Cup. She played in multiple Cup-winning Australian teams during the 1960s.
Bowrey went on to captain the side from 1994 to 2001 and it is believed the Orange Girl concept was introduced during this period.
RELATED: Debutant Joint receives team jacket from Aussie legend Bowrey
“We didn’t always have an Orange Girl,” she recalled. “It’s certainly something that I’d probably learned from seeing the Davis Cup – they always had the young player in there to learn a lot. It was a real experience for them.
“It’s a real treat for somebody to be selected to be an Orange Girl, to really learn the ropes about what goes on, and team spirit.”
In a full-circle moment, it was now-captain Stosur who introduced Bowrey to the Australian team this week in Brisbane. Stosur had been selected as Orange Girl at age 16 when Australia played Switzerland at Royal Sydney Golf Course in 2001, with Bowrey as captain.
“It was great for her to be around the girls who had been there and done that, to see how professional they were,” Bowrey recalled.
“Obviously at that age you learn a lot. We tried to teach her what she needed to do. Pretty tough deal; she had to do everything that I asked her to do, and I wasn’t always easy, probably (smiling). I think it was a real discipline week for her.
“It obviously stood her in good stead – she did well, she won a Grand Slam at the US Open, beating Serena Williams, and so she came on.”
Stosur has clear recollections of that week at Royal Sydney under Bowrey, right down to the hotel in which the team stayed in Coogee and the cafe they visited each morning by the beach.
The team comprised Pratt, Molik, Evie Dominikovic and Rachel McQuillan. “I’ve still got a poster of all of them, signing it,” Stosur revealed. “Pratty actually left quite a long message on there, saying ‘Dear fellow Queenslander’ and ‘practice hard and good things will happen’. And my Dad quoted that to me numerous times over my career.
“It was absolutely incredible to be the Orange Girl and see how it all operated and have that experience.
“Now [the cafe] is called Barzura… many years later I ended up living in Coogee so I could reminisce all the time.”
Pratt also remembers the week with Stosur in Sydney.
“I’d always encourage our Orange Girls to make sure they had all the players [in the team] sign something on the poster,” said Pratt, who made her Australian team debut in 1994. “And funnily enough, Sam put her poster up on the wall, and her parents said ‘just remember what Pratty said to you!’ about the hard work.
“It’s quite phenomenal to think of the Orange Girls that we’ve had over the years. They’ve gone on to become, like Sam Stosur, a Grand Slam champion. Top-10 players in the world [like] Alicia Molik; she was an Orange Girl as well.
“We certainly have a strong tradition.”
Is it surreal to her that, all these years later, she now works alongside Stosur as the team’s coach?
“Yeah it is,” replied Pratt, who enters her 10th year as the Australian Billie Jean King Cup team coach.
“I probably had the same feelings a little bit with Alicia to be honest, because I coached Alicia towards the back-end of her career. The fact she was captain and then I was coming in as coach… but equally [we were] playing peers. We’re all playing peers.
“To have such a strong relationship with both Alicia and Sam has made the transition easy for me, and I hope they say the same thing about me.”
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