Hope country girl's a sport — endless tease earlier (9)
I believe the answer is:
ruritania
'hope country' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'girl's a sport endless tease earlier' is the wordplay.
'girl's a' becomes 'tania' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'sport' becomes 'ru' (rugby union).
'endless' means to remove the last letter.
'tease' becomes 'rib' (I've seen this before).
'earlier' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'rib' with its final letter taken off is 'ri'.
'ru'+'ri'='ruri'
'tania' after 'ruri' is 'RURITANIA'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ruritania that I've seen before include "world of romance?" , "adventurous setting" , "Hope country" , "Imaginary small kingdom" , "Hope place" .)