17 year old orphan Kalina Bolic, flees the Yugoslav war to Melbourne, Australia.
Aided by non-nonsense coach Carmen Turner and her friend/rival Freja Milic, she pursues
her impossible dream of winning the Australian Open. However they all carry the same
demons they must help each other to conquer.

SYNOPSIS:

COMPS: The heart of ‘Rocky’ meets the intensity of ‘Whiplash.’

SYNOPSIS: 17 year old Serb Kalina Bolic, flees the Yugoslav war to Melbourne, Australia.

She is following her idol, the Yugoslav Alexandra Kostic, winner of the Australian Open. But

Kalina’s dream is so impossible and so deeply rooted in her own trauma, she cannot admit it,

even to herself.

In Melbourne she lives in a 1 room hovel, barely surviving as a cleaner at the prestigious

Kooyong Tennis Club. Returning home one night she finds her racquet stolen. When she

corners the thief, a teenage Bosnian refugee, she gets a black eye, but no racquet. Eventually

she finds out which flat number he lives at, a family of refugees in one room. Out of

sympathy she buys her racquet back off them with the last of her money.

At Kooyong she is a last minute replacement against Junior Australian Open finalist, Freja

Milic, the Croat to her Serb. Freja is annihilating her, but when Kalina aggressively disputes a

line call, the crowd start booing, just like the Croats did when the Serb was playing on their

courts. And like fuel Kalina begins clawing her way back in the match, until the crowd starts

cheering for the underdog. She disputes another decision, this time she is flat out cheating,

but the intimidated Freja, calls it in. As the cheering continues Kalina hears voices in her

head, abusing everything she does. She chokes and loses. And for dessert Freja’s coach, the

no nonsense Australian Aboriginal woman Carmen Turner, has her sacked.

With her dwindling money she tracks down Carmen at an interstate tennis tournament to get

her job back. She appeals to Carmen’s sympathy. Kalina knows she also choked in the 1965

Australian Open final. When that fails, she offers a deal, she’s figured out Freja is also a

choker, she likes the crowd cheering as much as Kalina likes them booing. She could be

Freja’s hitting partner. Carmen agrees to take her back...as the cleaner.

Back at Kooyong she sees Carmen’s unique coaching of Freja, she wears headphones and a

chest protector, while a ball machine fires green missiles at her. The headphones play the

racist things the other girls say about her, it is all about combating her negative voices. When

Freja refuses any more headphones training, Carmen subs in Kalina, who is run ragged by

Freja’s superiority, then collapses form hunger. But... she continues.

Carmen does pick her for elimination matches to pick a tournament team. Kalina comes dead

last.

Pissed off at yet another interloper, the scholarship girls leave a sandwich out for Kalina with

a used tampon in it. Freja stops her from confronting them and gives her some food. She

admits she is thinking of quitting the club and turning pro, Carmen is refusing her a wildcard

into the Australian Open.

Visiting Freja’s house, Kalina finds Freja’s bedroom walls a shrine to Alexandra Kostic. Freja

admits she is scared on court, that’s why she needs the crowd cheering. Kalina admits when

the crowd cheers, she hears a voice in her head abusing her. She reveals her father abandoned

her, her mother died in the war, it was she who gave her the racquet she still uses now.

Freja appeals to Carmen to help or else she will quit the club. Carmen hits Kalina with a

question 'What's the dream kid?' She refuses to answer, so Carmen breaks Kalina down with

intense mental and physical training, until near exhaustion she finally relents and exclaims 'I

want to win the bloody Australian Open!'

Kalina plays in another elimination round robin, and she eliminates everyone, Carmen picks

her for a state tournament.

But this enrages Freja, who demands Carmen give her a wildcard or she will quit. Kalina tries

to make her stay by them playing a match, if she wins then it means Freja isn’t ready and

should stay. But with the headphones on and Kalina using her old tricks, Freja chokes and

quits the club.

Playing in the final of the tournament Kalina is winning easily...until she sees her team mates

cheering and the voices start up. She chokes and loses.

Carmen pleads with Kalina to come back, but now Kalina reveals her truth. Her mother is

still alive, she abandoned her as a child and she was living in an orphanage when she saw

Kostic do the impossible. If she can bring back the trophy, maybe her mother will come back.

Carmen warns her, she choked in 65 due to her past trauma. Her Aboriginal parents were the

victim of a common practice of the time. The authorities physically removing them from their

parents. They never saw them again. Carmen won through round after round of the Australian

Open, being a black woman on white tennis courts, whether they booed or cheered now made

no difference, but she couldn’t help wondering if the parents she had fled from so many years

ago might actually be there watching. And that’s what brought her undone.

But Kalina goes out on the road, winning ugly, until she must beat her old friend/foe Freja,

the winner of this match will qualify for the Open. The crowd is against Kalina, Freja starts

choking. But coming through the crowd jeering is Carmen, still barracking for Kalina. When

Kalina gets a line call that is clearly wrong, she doesn’t dispute it, she forfeits and lets Freja

win. Now she is faced with returning to Yugoslavia empty handed.

Carmen takes Kalina back to the farm house she fled when she was 18, and that she vowed

never to return to. As Carmen relates her parents ‘both had their problems, getting married

made them worse, then they gave them to me.’ Kalina cannot go back to a home she has

never known. But Kalina pleads with her, she needs to win to have at least one good memory.

Carmen gets her a wildcard into the Open, but she draws the now world number 1 Alexandra

Kostic. Kalina refuses to play. So Carmen recruits Freja to help. Freja takes her to centre

court, Rod Laver arena. As the stadium is illuminated Kalina sees all her dreams before her.

More than her own career, Freja wants to see her best, her only ever real friend, face off

against their idol. Who knows, she might even win? Kalina resolves to play a good match,

not to rewrite her history, but to honour the friendship of Carmen and Freja.

Kalina and Freja begin intense training together, using the headphone method, though in

Kalina’s case it is hearing the positive things the Kooyong girls said about her. They run

along the banks of the Yarra river, running up the bridge that overlooks Melbourne Park.

But Freja loses her match.

Against Kostic, Kalina inexplicably takes the first set, the crowd behind the underdog. She

hears the voices of defeat, but cutting through is Freja yelling from the stands 'do it for your

coach.' Kalina twists her ankle, but she plays the match out until the end. She is able to

replace the negative voices with Carmen's coaching, they now tell her to keep going, until

when she makes a diving return to prevent Kostic winning, her ankle explodes. Freja and

Carmen help her off court, though she has lost, she has found a home in her friends she has

never known before.

A year later Freja is now a success on the world tennis circuit, she returns to Australia to

witness Kalina becoming an Australian citizen. She and Carmen have started their own tennis

academy.

NO SECOND PRIZE