Samantha Stosur was awarded the Ashley Cooper Medal at The Queensland Tennis Awards. This is Queensland tennis’ highest individual honor named after the Australian former world champion great who was the top ranked player in 1957 and 1958. Cooper was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1991 and currently sits on the Board of Directors for Tennis Australia.
Stosur, the 2011 US Open champion has received this keynote trophy four of the five last years. In 2013, the honor went to Ashleigh Barty, who had been the Wendy Turnbull Medal recipient the two previous years. The Wendy Turnbull Medal is presented to the junior athlete of the year. This year’s Turnbull award went to rising star Kimberly Birrell, who won the honor in 2014 as well.
Stosur earned this prestigious accolade on the strength of two WTA titles (Strasbourg and Bad Gastein) and a ranking of 25 at the time of the presentation. The Brisbane native had been Australia’s top ranked tennis player, male or female, for six and a half years prior being edged out by Bernard Tomic in May 2015. Although Tomic is currently the highest ranked Australian at 18, he was not one of the nominees.
Ajla Tomljanovic, world number 66 and soon to be Australian citizen, and the resurgent John Millman, who was ranked 74 at the time of the nominations, were the other two contenders. Tomljanovic attended the ceremony with Nick Kyrgios as her guest.
