TOTALLY Tennis Performance player Sammie Moreton has secured a full scholarship to the University of North Texas in America.

After an impressive tennis career in the UK, which included reaching the final stages in the Road To Wimbledon competition and representing Hampshire at various competitions, 16-year-old Moreton, who has played at Totally Tennis since the age of 10, has been offered her place a year earlier than her team-mates already studying in the US.

After completing her first year at Peter Symonds College in Winchester later this year, Moreton will jet off to Texas in the summer to continue her education.

She will benefit from a 100 per cent scholarship that includes all her tuition fees, books, accommodation and food, as well as clothing and racket stringing.

The college has more than 30,000 students, with the tennis team made up of Americans, one Austrian girl and now Moreton.

Her training will include three hours of tennis coaching every day and conditioning and weights sessions.

Moreton will study general subjects throughout her four-year course, including life skills and American history in the first two years, and then her chosen major of kinesiology, the science of how the body moves and works, for the last two years.

TT tennis director Nigel Long has coached Moreton individually for the last seven years.

And, recently, head coach Shane Deacon accompanied her during a whistle-stop tour of all the colleges in Texas to provide a first taste of American university life.

Moreton has played in many local, regional and national tournaments over the years.

She was a key member of the triumphant under-18 team who helped Hampshire to gain promotion in the inter-county cup last year.

Moreton is the fifth Totally Tennis player to gain an American university scholarship, joining Sarah Flood, Simon Taylor, Adam Flintoff and Tanya Hasking.

Moreton said: "I would like to thank Nigel for his dedication over the past seven years and Shane for organising the trip to the US.

"I was able to experience, first-hand, what life would be like at university and away from home in a different country."