Confessions of a former ball girl
Former tennis ball girl Claire Cohen knows how it feels to be on the wrong end of a power serve
They say there is a moment in every teenager’s life that leaves a mark. For one young girl this week, that took the form of a 138mph serve, courtesy of Nick Kyrgios, the Australian tennis player. On Tuesday, the 15th seed hit 42 aces during his first-round match against Denis Istomin at Wimbledon – and one of those unrepentant shots whizzed past his opponent, striking an unfortunate ball girl on the arm.
The crowd winced as the tearful teenager was helped to the umpire’s chair. I cringed for a different reason.
I remember it all too well – the perfectly manicured grass, white chalk lines, the feel of the fluffy tennis balls clutched in my 14-year-old hands. The split-second realisation that a serve was thundering towards me and I couldn’t dodge it (the first rule of being a ball girl or boy: stay completely still). The sucker punch as it struck my left thigh.
It was 1998, and I was a ball girl at the first grass court tournament of the season, Queen’s Club in south-west London. The server? Oh, just some spotty, unknown teenager playing his first professional match on British soil, by the name of Lleyton Hewitt.
I didn’t cry (hardcore, me), but I can understand why that poor girl did.
It might look like a breeze, standing around on court with the world’s top tennis players and handing out towels. But it’s a culmination of months of hard graft. It’s a brutal process. At my school, we were whittled down from more than 100, who started training in September, to around
50, who made it to the tournament in June – selected for our skill, stamina and speed by our teachers, who would patrol the playground with clipboards, judging our fitness, as we star-jumped, squatted and ran on the spot. You also have to learn a new language: “rolling” and “feeding” balls, as well as the intricacies of the game – when there will be a change of ends, when new balls are due, how to seamlessly swap positions with a fresh team when your 45-minute shift is over.
One thing is paramount: your job is to be invisible.
After nine months of scrawling “I hope they pick me!!!” in your teenage diary, the event itself is highly charged.
For us, there was an extra element of frisson as, the previous year, a girl from my school had been handed a racquet by Goran Ivanišević during the final and played a point against Aussie heart-throb Mark Philippoussis – swoon. And did you know that Greg Rusedski had met his wife when she was a ball girl? Maybe a player would fall in love with us, too? One look at the uniform told me this was a distant possibility: bright red polo shirt (size XXXL), green netball skirt and baseball cap. Hair had to be pulled back tightly and gelled. Make-up was banned. What player could resist?
Then there are the elements to contend with. This year’s intake are battling with the hottest Wimbledon since 1993, and BBGS – as they are known in SW19 – regularly faint on court.
Having to stand perfectly still, and in fear of making a mistake in front of thousands of spectators, is a recipe for lightheadedness.
Twenty years ago, it was wet. And Queen’s not having Cliff Richard on standby, we ball girls were made to sing live on the BBC during one rain delay. I have no recollection of the song, but I can clearly remember my goosepimpled knees knocking together.
On court, there are the players’ quirks to contend with; those who want two towels (Nadal); the superstitious ones who will only take balls from the right or left; who want them placed on their racquet, rather than bounced; or who refuse to play with the same ball for two shots in a row.
It’s easy to become a target for a player’s growing frustrations. I seem to recall the teenage Hewitt, having lost his match, being less than gracious when we clapped him off court.
My perfectly round purple bruise became a badge of honour, until it faded. And it could have been worse: when my own father was a ball boy in the Sixties, he had to crouch under the net for an entire point, after a player served while he was picking up a ball.
Kyrgios’s victim should think herself lucky. I know I do.
‘My perfectly round purple bruise became a badge of honour for the summer’