Liz Ellis
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Liz Ellis (born 17 January 1973) is an Australian netball player. She is the captain and the best-known player on the current Australian team, not only for her long representative career but also for her off-court media work. Ellis plays goalkeeper for both the Australian team and her club team, the Sydney Swifts, thus usually matching up against the opposing team's best shooter. Ellis is widely acknowledged as one of the greats of her sport. She is considered by many netball fans to be the world's best defender. Over recent years, her confrontations with the New Zealand shooting sensation Irene Van Dyk have been regular highlights of international netball.
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[edit] Domestic
Ellis became the captain of the Sydney Swifts in 2000. She was the captain for their 2001, 2004 and 2006 Commonwealth Bank Trophy premierships.
In 2006, she displayed champion qualities by rebounding from a career-threatening knee reconstruction (see below) to play one of her best ever netball seasons, leading the Sydney Swifts through an undefeated season, and culminating with her being named best-on-court in the 2006 Commonwealth Bank Trophy Grand Final against the Adelaide Thunderbirds.
She has won Australian netball’s Most Valued Player Award, the most prized individual award in Australian netball, four times, in 1996, 1998, 2002 and 2006.
[edit] International
Joining the senior Australian squad in 1992, she has been a fixture since, as part of the world championship winning sides in 1995 and 1999, as well as the Commonwealth Games gold medal team (a competition as strong as the World Championship, as all the strongest netball teams are part of the Commonwealth) in Kualar Lumpur in 1998 and in Manchester in 2002.
She became captain of the national team in February 2004.
In the Test against the Silver Ferns played in Auckland on October 29, 2005, Ellis suffered a serious knee injury, which required surgery and rehabilitation lasting several months. As a result she missed netball's next major international series, the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. Since her return to the side, the Australian team has been more successful against their main rivals for international dominance, the Silver Ferns.
[edit] Career
Ellis is a fully-qualified solicitor, but has given legal work up to concentrate on business and media work. She has been a regular panellist on a number of sports panel shows, where her gently self-deprecating humor has been popular. For 5 years she presented a weekly sports segment on the ABC's national youth radio network, Triple J. She has also appeared several times on The Glass House. Her business activities include running junior coaching clinics amongst a number of other activities and endorsements.
Ellis lives in Sydney with her husband Matthew Stocks.
[edit] References
- Liz Ellis at Adams Management (retrieved 26-6-2006)
