Now Towel Boy foiled by Irish con …but Sock puts it right
THE TEEN at the centre of the Wimbledon tennis towel tug-of-war had his reward snatched for a second time – this time by an Irish scammer.
On Tuesday, a clip of a man wrestling a towel – thrown into the crowd by US tennis player Jack Sock – from the teenager went viral. Tennis ace Sock tweeted: ‘If anyone knows the kid that unfortunately had the towel ripped out of his hands… tweet his name at me and I’ll be sure to get him one.’
Sock was then contacted on Instagram by an Irish person pretending to be ‘Towel Boy’, as the teen became known online.
It is understood that Sock sent him a towel and offered to bring him to his games but the imposter declined, saying they had already returned to Ireland.
The Irish Mail on Sunday has tracked down the real boy at the centre of the ‘towelgate’ storm.
Peter Woodville, 14, from Philadelphia, eventually managed to get in contact with his hero and – finally – got hold of his towel.
‘Jack was very nice to me. He said, “I’m sorry to hear about [the towel snatch]” and then he opened up his bag and gave me a towel and said, “Let’s get a picture, so my mom took one.”’
It wasn’t until two days after the towel snatch – when Peter typed ‘Jack Sock’ into Google to see who his hero was playing next – that he realised he had become an online sensation.
‘I couldn’t believe the video of me had gone all around the world. Can you spread the word that the boy from Ireland is not the boy; it’s me!’
Speaking about the original incident, Peter told the MoS: ‘I was shocked as well as very disappointed when the man took the towel out of my hands.
‘I had queued up for five and a half hours and waited the better part of the day to see Jack play. So after the match, I asked Jack for his towel and I had it in my hands until the man snatched it away. ‘I thought, “This man must be a very sick person to do such a horrible thing to a kid.’
And Peter might need to invest in a bigger hot press, with the US Open, Australian Open and French Open promising to give him a Grand Slam collection of Open towels.