Ready to serve: Sam Groth on his vision for Victoria
With the same confidence he faced tennis legend Roger Federer at Wimbledon almost 10 years ago, Liberal MP Sam Groth has his eyes fixed on being a future premier.
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Sam Groth never walks into a battle thinking he won’t win it.
In a third-round match at Wimbledon in 2015, the fairly unknown, skinny, blonde, 193cm, 27-year-old from Australia faced Roger Federer, arguably the greatest player of all time.
Federer ended his career with 103 titles – including 20 slams. The man opposite had none.
No one in the arena expected Sam Groth to win – except for him.
“I genuinely walked into that match thinking I could win,” he recalls.
“You don’t go into any competitive environment thinking you’re going to lose. If you do, you’re stuffed before you get started.”
Some within his inner circle believe it’s this same competitive, ambitious spirit that has largely driven his rise through the ranks of the Victorian Liberal Party.
And it could also explain why he views himself as a future premier of Victoria.
“I want to be premier, yes,” he says.
“I don’t sit here in this place wanting to be the next Jeff Kennett, or the next Robert Menzies or the next John Howard. I want to be the first Sam Groth and do things my way.
“I have a vision of how I think Victoria should look. I just don’t know when that opportunity is going to present itself to be able to deliver that. For now though, I have a role to play in the broader Liberal team.”
Not your typical Liberal
Born in the Riverina town of Narrandera in NSW, Sam Groth, along with his sister Sophie and brother Oliver, spent most of their childhood living on the Murray River at Corowa. The Groth family didn’t have a lot but they loved the country life.
He says often he is incorrectly viewed as what is considered as the inner-city Liberal stereotype.
“There’s nothing wrong with this, but when I joined the party I was pinned as a private school educated silver spoon Liberal.
“It couldn’t be further from the truth,” he laughs. “I wasn’t a young Liberal. I went to public school.”
Sam’s dad, Phillip, often worked seven days a week running a TAB in Corowa. His mother Melinda, who died last year after a 15-year battle with a brain tumour, stayed at home to care for the kids.
The Groth family moved to Albury when Sam was 12.
Holidays were rare. The family never travelled overseas. If they were to go somewhere, it was back to Narrandera to visit the grandparents.
Occasionally, they’d head to Sydney, but interstate trips were a rare luxury.
“We didn’t grow up poor, we didn’t grow up rich. We were a regular Aussie family,” Groth says.
“My parents have never owned a house in Melbourne. They’ve been renters forever.”
At 16, Sam left his family and headed for Melbourne to pursue tennis professionally.
Here, he boarded with the family of another budding young tennis player.
They lived in Cheltenham.
Looking back now, Sam says he probably should have made a name for himself playing footy – ideally for his beloved Sydney Swans.
“I was probably better at footy than I was at tennis,” he says.
“I’m more suited to that being nearly six foot five (193cm) and 115kg.”
But he chose the court because it allowed him to “control my own destiny”.
“Tennis let me control how hard I trained, I didn’t rely on anybody else. Yes, you put people around you to make you better but ultimately you’re in control,” he says.
Chasing the dream
At just 17, Groth had made the professional circuit. That year, he was on a plane bound for London when it suddenly all felt very real.
He found himself alone on the other side of the world, navigating the stresses of being an elite athlete with no money. He says he often looks back and draws comparisons between life on tour and his current job.
“Your best mates are your worst enemies. It’s a bit like politics,” he teases.
“There’s guys you travel with, you stay with, you eat breakfast with, you train with and then when the draw comes out they’re suddenly your opponent.”
Groth says he’s a fairly optimistic person and doesn’t like to dwell on regrets.
But probed about whether there was anything he’d done in his past that he would change – he pauses to think.
“Probably getting married at 21,” he says.
In 2009, Groth married Slovak-Australian tennis player Jarmila Gajdosova, who he met on tour. The pair divorced after just two years.
“It just didn’t work out. I think when you’re that age and you’re travelling the world playing tennis – it probably was at the time a poor decision,” he says.
“Do I regret it? Yeah. Looking back, would I go through it again? No, but at the same time, decisions in life lead you to certain places. It led me back to Melbourne where I met (wife) Britt. It’s a chapter in my life that’s closed.”
Groth made a name for himself in 2012 when he served an ace that roared past his opponent, little known Belarusian Uladzimir Ignatik, at 263km/h while playing an ATP Challenger event in Busan, South Korea.
It was, and still remains, the fastest serve recorded.
Groth this month put aside a torn calf and broken finger – injuries from a recent footy match – and picked up his racket to return to Melbourne Park. He had a hit on Court 3, a stage he’s played on many times.
It was also the place he played his first Australian Open match. He was up against then-seeded American Mardy Fish.
A group of American fans all wore white
T-shirts that spelled out F I S H, he recalls.
Groth won a set, but ultimately went down in four.
That famous serve that became his biggest weapon, is still evident more than a decade later, albeit, thankfully, about 163km/h slower.
“Do you want me to hit a softer one?” Groth shouts from the baseline during a hit.
Back off court, he reflects on the power of a big serve.
“Outside of the usual big names, that serve gave me a profile that I never had and it put me on a different level to those with a similar ranking,” he says.
Groth’s best year on the circuit was in 2015. He reached a career high singles ranking of 53 in the world, was part of the Australian team that made the semi-finals at the Davis Cup and he won the Newcombe medal, the nation’s top annual tennis prize.
“It was a good year,” he says.
Foot surgery at the end of 2015 marked the beginning of the end for Groth’s tennis career.
“I knew by midway 2016 that my body wasn’t the same and I was stuffed,” he says.
Still, the best was yet to come, when he received a last minute call-up to represent the nation at the 2016 Rio Olympics. He lost to Belgium’s David Goffin but still describes
this moment as a contender for his career highlight.
The final time he stepped on a court was alongside compatriot and good friend Lleyton Hewitt, who he remains in regular contact with, for a doubles match in the 2018 Australian Open quarterfinals.
“I was still playing well enough to probably keep going. It wasn’t what I wanted to do anymore, though. I wasn’t enjoying it,” he says.
Groth knew his tennis days were behind him as soon as he stepped off the court that night.
New beginnings
Like every budding professional athlete, Groth had high hopes for his career.
He sums himself up as a good tennis player, but not a great one.
“I think every kid has the dream to be world No.1. Of course, you want to win Wimbledon. You want to play for Australia. You work hard and you try and get as good as you can be, and you never give up on that dream but over time at some point you become realistic to where you sit in the whole scheme of things,” he says.
In post-retirement life, he dabbled in media and found himself to be quite comfortable in front of the camera.
While he hosted travel show Postcards and was a regular commentator at Grand Slams, broadcast didn’t fill him with purpose.
It was during Covid – and the state’s lockdowns – where Groth found his purpose.
Britt, who was stood down from her marketing job during the pandemic, vividly remembers that dark chapter.
During an interview at the couple’s Rye home, Britt pointed to the couch where Sam used to religiously tune into the daily Daniel Andrews’ Covid press conferences.
“Every day I just watched Sam getting more and more frustrated with the situation,” she says.
“If Covid didn’t happen, we wouldn’t be involved in politics. Sam would still love politics and support the Liberal Party like he always has, but it’d be very different.” Britt remembers being pregnant with the couple’s twin sons when Sam first floated the idea of running for parliament. He had joined the Liberal Party in October 2021.
“My first reaction was yes, definitely,” she says. “I was scared, but I told him he should do it, and win it.
“Sam doesn’t do things by halves. He doesn’t like to lose, and in everything he’s done, he’s always sought to be at the top of his game.”
Family man
Groth and Britt met at the Templestowe Park Tennis Club at the end of 2011.
At the time, he was hating tennis and was about to join the Metropolitan Fire Brigade.
“Geez, that would have been a very different story,” he jokes.
Groth, who was coaching budding youngsters, was wearing long white pants and a white jumper in an ode to Wimbledon’s strict dress codes when he first saw Britt, who had never heard of her future husband.
He had just made it in the top 300 in the world, but wasn’t yet a household name in Australian tennis.
“When I first met him I was like, ‘OK, nice to meet you, cool’ and over time we ended up hitting with each other and connecting from there,” she says.
Thirteen years later, the pair bicker when asked how long it took for them to fall for one another.
“It was quicker for you,” Groth interrupts, while posing up for our photoshoot.
Britt turns to Groth: “No it wasn’t, you added me on Facebook.
“He added me on Facebook immediately,” she says, before adding: “I think that I knew I wanted to be with him but he was in such a different space to what my friends and girlfriends were in.”
Britt had plans to move to the United States to play college tennis, and she wasn’t going to let a boy ruin that dream.
It wasn’t long until Sam followed her over. Here, he admits, is where he fell in love with the sport again.
Both describe each other as strong, driven and even a bit hard-headed in their own unique ways. But they manage to make the relationship work.
Groth recalls an early relationship story.
“My wife bought a toy poodle on her way home from a winery one day. I wanted a lab. We couldn’t agree so we got both,” he says of their dogs Millie and Lulu, both seven.
The couple clearly like to do things in two.
Britt gave birth to identical twins Mason and Parker during the height of Covid.
The cheeky duo bring an obvious energy to the Groth household.
The boys, now three, are the spitting image of their father but definitely boast similarities of each parent.
“They’re two little versions of me, in terms of how they look, but they’ve certainly got bits of their mum in there for sure,” Groth says proudly.
“They’re strong, they’re opinionated, they’ll tell you what they want, they’re not shy.”
As soon as the bells ring on a Thursday evening to signify the end of a parliamentary sitting week, Groth says his car is already packed and he’s rushing out the door to get home to his family.
“I’ve lived a very public life, but I also like my private time where I can just be with Britt and the boys,” he says.
“They’re everything to me.
“My parents tried to give us everything, they weren’t from a lot, but I always want to make sure that I’m doing everything I can to ensure that my family is taken care of and my boys have that little bit more of an opportunity than I had.”
On a Friday night, Groth says he can be found at the pub drinking Carlton draught – from the tap, definitely not a bottle.
Serving the people
Sam Groth’s parliamentary office is relatively low key. There’s a few framed pictures of his wife and their boys placed on his desk.
There’s also an Olympic crest that he got when he participated in the Rio Olympics, as well as a handful of personalised ‘Have a frothy with Grothy’ stubby holders that he gives out to constituents.
Every MP has their own office in a large horseshoe-like building at the back of parliament known as the members’ annex.
Groth’s office is at the furthest end of the building, on the bottom floor. It almost feels a bit out of place for a personality as prominent as Groth to be kept hidden away in the corner.
During this interview from his office, the 36-year-old says he loves being tucked away at the back.
“It’s quiet. It allows me to sit back and do my work,” he says.
Groth applies similar tennis lessons to his political career. In many ways, there are similarities between being a tennis player and a politician, he says. “You have an opponent on the other side,” he begins. “There’s the tactics of the to and fro, as well as putting your game plan up against theirs.
“Tennis isn’t about hitting one shot, it’s about working out how to break down your opponent and win the match.
“The only difference here is that winning is to get into government and being able to actually make decisions and deliver on the things you want to make a difference on.”
Elected the Member for Nepean at the 2022 election, it seemed a no-brainer for Liberal leader John Pesutto to immediately elevate Groth to his frontbench in the shadow portfolio of Tourism, Sport and Major Events, as well as Youth.
It’s what he knew – and his broadcast experience highlighted that he wasn’t exactly shy in front of the camera.
So it wasn’t long before whispers internally surfaced about Groth being named as a potential challenger for leadership.
Pesutto’s leadership has been marred by constant rumours and leaks from colleagues about the threat of a spill motion.
Groth says he never considered challenging Pesutto for the leadership, however other colleagues disagree and say it came “very close”.
Now, speaking on record, Groth confesses he has a desire to one day lead the state, but insists he won’t be a troublemaker.
“If an opportunity presents itself at some stage in the future to put my hand up and be the leader? Absolutely. Does that mean I’ll be premier of the state? Well that’s a decision for the Victorian people,” he says.
“Do I want to be premier? The answer is yes, one day. But when is one day? I’m 36. I didn’t get into this to walk away after one term, or two, or three, or four.”
Those closest to Groth believe he has a “plan” that he’s chipping away at each day.
His bid for the top job has the tick of approval from Britt, who says she can “absolutely” see it happening.
“And to be honest there’s no one I would trust more than Sam doing it. I know Sam and his intentions. He’d be the perfect candidate for it,” she says.
“But he is inherently loyal, so he will be loyal to the leader of the Liberal Party, and John, for as long as that needs to be.
“If the time comes when Sam can put his hand up, Sam will definitely do that.”
After three consecutive election losses, the Liberal Party’s brand in Victoria is in tatters. But in recent weeks the party has enjoyed some momentum.
Groth believes this is the key to uniting a party room that is so divided. “A little bit of success goes a long way. There’s been large parts of this year where we haven’t spoken about ourselves as a party because we’ve started to see a path to government in 2026.
“When you see no hope or no future, it’s
very, very easy for people to step out of line,” he says.
“We need to start defining ourselves, write our own narrative and not let Labor define us. Too often I think we let our political opponents define who we are. It’s time we set our agenda.”
A new spark
The best governments are the ones you don’t notice, Groth argues.
“They’re working, taking care of the vulnerable and those who need assistance, and they’re getting out of the way and letting other people who do things, probably a lot better than government, do it,” he says.
He believes there needs to be a “fair go for the frontline” focus, but claims the Jacinta Allan – and previously Andrews – governments have failed to provide that, pointing to the continued threats of industrial action from the powerful unions of emergency service and frontline workers.
Another focus area for Groth would be empowering the ambitious – the people who “have a go”, as he puts it. Whether that be small business owners or investors, they should be rewarded.
“That’s one of the things that kills me about this current government. They come after anyone who is prepared to have a go and get ahead. That’s their No.1 target to try to rein in the problems they’ve created,” he says.
“I’ll give any amount of time to people who are prepared to have a go.”
Groth says Victoria, particularly Melbourne, has lost its spark. He points to the weekend when Taylor Swift descended on Melbourne and says the buzz in the city was palpable.
“We need to use that as a benchmark of what we can be,” he says.
“I was lucky enough to be able to travel a lot and when I came back to Melbourne over the summer period for the Australian Open, for that month, this was the best place in the world.
“We need to get back to that place.”
Groth’s serves still pack a punch
Walking down the ramp and on to Court 3 at Melbourne Park is no strange feeling for Sam Groth.
It is where, 15 years ago, he made his Grand Slam debut at the 2009 Australian Open.
Entering the tournament as a wildcard, the tall and skinny blonde 21-year-old found himself up against the 23 seed, American Mardy Fish. A tough first-round opponent.
“It was bloody hot,” Sam remembers.
The crowd had gathered in to support the young Aussie hopeful. He shocked all when he took the first set in a tie-break. But his early momentum was short lived, and he was bundled out in four sets.
Last week, Sam and I returned to that very court for a quick hit. I wanted to see whether I – someone who considers myself to be an OK player who hits weekly – could keep up with a former pro.
To my surprise, yes I could. Well, for the first few rallies, anyway.
And then the serves came.
“Hit it to my forehand,” I pleaded after I barely got my racquet to three consecutive serves to my body.
“That was so fast.”
He questioned: “You want me to hit it softer?”
Sam will be the first to admit he’s not in the same shape that he was in when he walked on to court in 2009. “I’ve got a few kegs on you,” he joked to me as we tied our shoelaces.
Sam Groth doesn’t move around the court like he once did. But his competitive streak is still as fierce as ever.
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