Britney Brace said she is hopeful of following in her older sister’s footsteps on the tennis court.
The 12-year-old Parkland girl recently reached the semifinals of the Sunshine State Open Level 3 tennis tournament at the Polo Club of Boca Raton.
“I thought I did good; I wanted to win of course,” said Brace, whose older sister Cadence recently turned professional. The 17-year-old graduated from Stoneman Douglas High School where she won the Class 4A state championship in both singles and doubles with partner Amanda Aponte in 2021. “That’s the good thing about playing tennis. There are a lot of opportunities and challenges.”
Brace opened the tournament with a 6-0, 6-1 win over Miami Beach’s Anna Block. After dropping the first set 6-3 in the round of 16, she rallied to win the second set against Delray Beach’s Taisiya Sorokina 6-2 and then captured the tiebreaker 10-7.
Brace then downed Molly Widlansky in the quarterfinals 6-1, 6-2 before falling in the semifinals to the top-seeded Sophia Osipova 6-3, 6-4. Osipova went on to win the Girls 12s title.
Playing since she was 3, the home-schooled seventh-grader said she likes the sport for what it has to offer, especially winning.
“I play with my dad and it’s really a good bond that we have,” she said. “I like winning and achieving things.
“I like when I set a bar for myself and I achieve it and that feels good because I know I worked for it,” Brace added. “The best part is learning how to deal with a bunch of different people with a bunch of different tactics. For me, personally, I always play the right way. I’ll hit the ball hard with spin. I kind of play the same game against any opponent no matter how they play whether they are a moon baller, or they hit hard like you. You’ve got to play like a pro.”
Brace said she likes Italian professional Camila Giorgi because she hits really hard and also likes her sister’s game. She admitted there is “quite a bit of pressure” for her to follow in her sister’s footsteps.
“The pressure is a good motivation because I want to be just like her,” Brace said. “I want to play professionally just like her and I want to play in the finals of Wimbledon with her and I want to do it with her.
“When I was little, I just copied her, so she really got me into tennis,” Brace said. “When she was doing it and I was doing it, I just started loving it. I enjoyed playing every single day with her. She is a really big role model in my life.”
Brace plans on playing in more national age group tournaments. She’s played in many women’s open tournaments.
“It’s good to play against people who are older or better than you,” she said. “When you have somebody better than you, you learn how to play like them. I’d like to turn pro like when I am 15. And I think I am going to be at that level when I am that age. I am going to start playing the 25Ks and the 15Ks as soon as possible when I am ready.”
In her two tournaments before the Sunshine State Open, Brace won both the Summer Smash Open Girls 12s with a 7-5, 6-3 win over Lake Worth’s Nikol Davletshina and in the Delray Champions Girls 12s with a 6-0, 6-3 victory over Miami’s Luciana Chica.
The sixth annual 2022 Sunshine State Open tournament consisted of matches in boys’ and girls’ singles and doubles in 12s and 14s divisions. They were contested at Boca West Country Club and the Polo Club.
“It took until sunset on the third day of matches, but the 128 kids that battled were worth every minute that staff, officials, and especially parents, persevered,” said John Butler, tournament spokesman. “The level of tennis and individual grace of game was special.”
