For two hours, Albanese and a senior Liberal played tennis while a prime minister was rolled
It was a cold, rain-soaked Friday morning in July 2013 when Australia’s acting prime minister, Anthony Albanese, stepped onto a tennis court in Bendigo and lost to a 10-year-old.
Albanese had been scheduled to visit the regional Victorian city for a community event and fundraiser when Kevin Rudd was called to Jakarta, briefly elevating his deputy to the top job.
With a planned tournament washed out by persistent rain, Albanese – a life-long tennis enthusiast – agreed to a soggy hit with junior Tiahna Leader, an emerging local talent.
He was quickly outplayed.
But this wasn’t a hit and giggle. Albanese is widely regarded as a strong club-level player, capable of holding his own, far above social standard. And opponents say his competitiveness runs deep.
Those who have played against him say while he wouldn’t have wanted to be seen overpowering a child – even a good one – losing wouldn’t have come easily.
Tales from the tennis court have long been woven through Albanese’s life. He grew up about three kilometres from the Marrickville and District Hardcourt Tennis Club in Sydney’s inner west, where he first learned the game and developed a passion he still pursues competitively decades later.
He has played competition tennis for years, grinding through hardcourt matches until time and wear caught up. As the joints stiffened, he switched surfaces, discovering that grass was kinder.
Tennis, he has said, appealed because it was mentally unforgiving. A sport that demands total concentration.
“I find, for my mental health, it’s a pretty useful use of my time,” he once explained.
The attachment has travelled with Albanese through every phase of parliamentary life.
From around 2016 to 2021, when parliament was sitting, Albanese would turn up early every Thursday morning at Parliament House for a social hit with colleagues.
Canberra winters are often sub-zero, but a core group of four tennis-loving pollies would reliably show up. Among them was Liberal John Alexander – known as “JA” – a former world No. 8 and Davis Cup player who was the most desired doubles partner among MPs.
Nationals MP Kevin Hogan, a solid club player with an incredible lob, and Labor’s Peter Khalil, who once competed as a junior at the Australian Open and briefly toured on the European circuit, rounded out the foursome.
Politics, those mornings, was largely set aside. Political hierarchies that dominate inside the walls of parliament were flattened on court. It was only JA who came with a higher status.
Other MPs drifted in and out of these parliamentary hits, including former treasurer Josh Frydenberg, Nationals MP Darren Chester and Labor’s Luke Gosling and Meryl Swanson.
As much as it infuriated Albanese, Hogan and JA often claimed victory. Hogan and Alexander both recall those early matches where Albanese and Khalil were so eager to beat their coalition opponents that the Labor men made repeated unforced errors.
“The harder they tried, the more errors they made,” Alexander said. “But it was great fun. We made a lot of good friends.”
In August 2018, during a tumultuous and chaotic week in Canberra that ended with Malcolm Turnbull being rolled as prime minister, a dejected Alexander phoned Albanese and offered him a tennis lesson.
For two hours the pair practised on the courts at Parliament House while his colleagues worked the phones and did the numbers inside.
“He was a great student and picked things up quickly and tried really hard,” Alexander told this masthead.
“We did everything from ground strokes to serving and volleying.”
On Alexander’s retirement, Albanese would later thank JA in parliament for teaching him “to do a kick second serve”.
Alexander also recalls teaming up with Albanese for doubles.
“We were playing together, and he was a bit too close to the net. The ball went flying over his head and he looked at me to get it. I am more than 10 years older than him, and I’ve got a bad hip. Men, when they come to the net, need to be responsible for their own lobs. He got that,” he said.
Khalil, who is the assistant minister for defence and who once beat Mark Philippoussis as a teenager, described Albanese as a “very strong” club player.
“He has a strong forehand and a decent volley,” he said.
“He also has a bit of power, but his best attribute is his mental toughness.”
Others echo this assessment. Despite a few technical quirks – including a questionable grip – Albanese’s opponents say he fights for every shot. They also agree that he refuses to concede points cheaply, with contestable points even attracting their own name – “Albo calls”.
That competitive edge was visible early. According to his biography, Albanese – Telling it Straight, by Karen Middleton, published in 2016, at school Albanese challenged a decision to award a tennis title to his best friend after rain washed out the final.
His attachment to tennis didn’t fade with high office. In May 2022, after his first full week as prime minister, Albanese marked the moment not with ceremony but with routine, turning up at his local tennis club to play doubles in the Sydney Badge competition.
Marrickville won six sets to two.
Tennis, he said, offered an escape. “You hit the ball over the net and between the lines, you can’t think about other things like what’s going on in the world or climate change, or the decision-making processes that you’ve got to do,” he once said.
Tennis, for Albanese, has also been used to build relationships. Over the years, MPs and other notable Australian figures have been invited for a hit, including at his Canberra home, The Lodge.
Albanese has joked that becoming prime minister was the only way he would ever live in a house with a tennis court.
Those who have been lucky enough to receive such an invitation are hesitant to reveal too many details, but say it offered them invaluable access to have a hit and a drink with a relaxed prime minister.
As his authority in Canberra grew, so too did the opportunities that came with the game.
The Sydneysider has also been a regular presence at the Australian Open in Melbourne, which, in January, functions as a soft-power hub where politics, corporate Australia and lobbying converge under the guise of a grand slam.
Parliamentary records show multiple taxpayer-funded trips linked to the tennis, involving flights, allowances and car costs – travel he has consistently defended as legitimate and within the rules.
His explanation has been consistent: the tennis was never the sole purpose of the trip. As with many major sporting events, the lines are not always sharply drawn.
What distinguishes his case is that the interest, itself, is long-standing. Unlike the performative sporting appearances that occasionally mark political life, Albanese’s attachment to tennis pre-dates his political power.
That hasn’t stopped the hecklers. In 2024, he was jeered and booed at Rod Laver Arena when acknowledged at the Australian Open men’s final.
While tennis has offered him an escape, his work has repeatedly found its way onto the court. In October 2011, as Qantas prepared to ground its fleet in response to industrial action, Albanese – then transport minister – was playing tennis in a social competition at Marrickville when he received a call from an adviser telling him to expect urgent contact from Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce.
Albanese tried Joyce’s mobile twice unsuccessfully, leaving a pointed message before the call finally came. Joyce told him the airline would be grounded within hours. Albanese told him it was a bad decision.
Again, in 2024, events beyond the court interrupted his routine when Albanese was photographed playing tennis at Perth’s Cottesloe Tennis Club shortly after the Melbourne synagogue firebombing. His “exercise” routine presented, to some, as detachment.
There have been interruptions to his tennis game— a car accident in 2021 and a dislocated finger in a charity Australian rules match – but neither broke the routine for long.
The habit persists. Last August, he surprised locals at Collaroy Tennis Club when he arrived – without an entourage – to represent Marrickville in the division 9 men’s team Badge semi-final.
When called “Mr PM”, he waved it away. On court, he said, he was just Anthony.
As for the score, he was comprehensively beaten.
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Annika Smethurst is the Victorian affairs editor for The Age.Connect via X or email.