Background
Ellis was born in Windsor, New South Wales, on 17 January 1973.
Ellis was born in Windsor, New South Wales, on 17 January 1973.
After finishing high school at John Paul II Senior Catholic High School, Ellis attended the Australian Institute of Sport on a netball scholarship. She also completed a law degree at Macquarie University while she worked her way up the ranks of Australian netball.
She is the most capped international player for Australian netball. After attending the Associate of Applied Science in 1991-1992, Ellis made her debut for the Australian Netball Team in July 1993 against Wales. lieutenant was the 1995 World Championships in Birmingham where she stamped her mark on the international netball scene with a sterling performance in the grand final against South Africa.
She went on to be a mainstay of the Australian Netball Team, participating in the 1995, 1999, 2003 and 2007 World Championships and the 2002 and 2006 Commonwealth Games.
She was named Vice-Captain of the team in 2000 and Captain in 2004 and broke the record for the highest number of tests played for Australia in 2005. She was named Australian Netball"s Most Valued Player on four occasions - 1996, 1998, 2002 and 2006.
Ellis became the captain of the Sydney Swifts in 2000. She was the captain for their team in 2001, 2004, 2006 and 2007 Commonwealth Bank Trophy premierships.
She played her entire domestic career for the Swifts and holds the record for the most amount of games played in the Commonwealth Bank Trophy (173).
In October 2005, Ellis suffered a career-threatening knee injury in a match against New Zealand in Auckland. She defied the critics by making a full recovery from a full knee reconstruction and producing some of the best netball of her career in the two years that followed. Ellis announced her retirement from netball on 19 November 2007, two days after leading Australia to a World Championship victory over New Zealand.
Since 2008 and her retirement of netball, Ellis has become a commentator of netball for both Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Championship and International test level matches for both Fox Sports and Network Ten.