Farmers Classic – A Ball Boy’s Perspective: Malisse, Djokovic

Written by: Staff on 2nd August 2011

Farmers Classic – A Ball Boy's Perspective: Malisse, Djokovic |

It’s 9am my alarm rings on this Saturday morning. Today are the ball kid try-outs at the sycamore courts down at UCLA. I go and see a lot of new faces and some old ones, as this is my sixth year ball-boying, I am now the leader and the example the ball kid monitors use.

It’s time, we split up into 2 groups and we have different drills, one court is learning how to feed the ball to the player and how to roll the ball through a tight space and the other court we learn how to gather the balls after the point. You might say Daniel being a ball kid is soo easy anyone can do it. Except for the fact that you must be able to hold still for an hour, be able to roll the balls through a tight space, be ready to dodge the ball at anytime, be ready for anything the player wants and being able to hand them their towel while keeping track of where all the balls are and knowing that players hate playing with the same ball.

Every player has different tendencies. For example Xavier Malisse only takes balls form his left side ball kid. So pretty much as a ball kid, you have to be ready for anything and also be able to know how the scoring works in tennis, when to roll the balls down and when to keep them and go hold the umbrella for the players. But that’s a wrap for the ball kid try outs, next time I see everyone is the Saturday before the tourney for qualifying.

So it’s 8am on Saturday and the qualifying doesn’t start until 10am but for the first hour we are given our clothes. All the ball kids try to guess what color shirt we are going to be getting but it always turns out to be a color nobody expected.

So it’s 10am and qualifying is about to start, we get split up into 8 groups of 6, 2 groups per court. Those 6 people are the people we work with for the whole day. For us ball boys, qualifying is like our practice, its good match stimulation, but without having thousands of people watching your every move and million more on TV. Some of these matches however can be very long, so having the endurance to withstand an hour and a half long set, without having to be able to leave the court and without being able to drink water and having to run all over the court to pick up balls. So the weekend is done and now it’s time for the real deal.

All the qualifying is done and now the pressure is on. Us ball kids are the first people that arrive and some of the last to leave. Monday our first day bright and early, we arrive at 1pm where we check in, we each receive a minimum of 1 ticket each and sometimes more if there are any extras, we also receive a meal card of 15$ to spend for food. So after we check in, we leave our ticket back at will call and come back for a meeting which includes things to remember for that day, usually something the umpire wants us to do or something we are told by the tournament for example, not to leave our posts until the chair umpire has called “time”. Then we get split into groups which are then split by court: stadium is usually groups 1-2 and grandstand is groups 3-5.

Day 1 and night 1 are usually the most relaxed, as the tourney is just getting underway. Tuesday and Wednesday are usually the same, a lot of matches going on at grandstand which means that always towards the end of the day, it’s usually a scramble because they move matches and keep matches, so us as ball kids have to be ready at all times, for example, Wednesday, I’m waiting to go on grandstand, until the monitor says that you have to run over to stadium, I tuck my shirt in, and put my hat on and run on to the court. That’s just one of unexpected events that all the ball kids have to be ready for anything.

For instance, all the ball kids that are suppose to work the next set, have to be there at 4 games, meaning whoever gets to 4 games first, but if all of a sudden a ball kid is eating and hanging out and it 5-0 in 15 minutes and everyone but that one ball kid is ready, then the “ball kid monitor” has to look for another ball kid in the stands or worst case is having one of the ball kids of the previous set stay on and work one more set.

This takes me to the most common question I get from fans, do you get paid as a ball kid, based on how many sets you work? The answer is nope we get paid in clothes, tickets and food.

To wrap up a very busy Tuesday and Wednesday, on court, one of the hardest parts is when a player asks for his towel and your not paying attention because it has been a long day and night and then the player yells at you, or when the player is picky on what side he gets the balls from or when he makes you tie your own shoes in front of everyone, or when the player wants his water bottles a certain way, and when players don’t keep two balls in their pocket when they serve and make the ball kid feed him a ball in between serves.

Now for Thursday, it’s kids day which means as a representative of the tourney we have to be on our best behavior, we can not get autographs in our uniforms and we can not be caught sitting in box seats with our uniform on. Which is why usually the ball kids bring a change of clothes in order to get the autographs of some of the greats. This year was unique, on Thursday, one of the ball kids saw Novak Djokovic at the tourney and nobody else knew for the most part, so almost all the ball kids were roaming around with the idea that Novak was on the grounds. So that was pretty much Thursday, way more relaxed then Wednesday or Tuesday, maybe because the start time was 12 so things were more spread out.

Starting on Friday, you have only the best of the best ball kids since matches are on TV. This brings some more trouble because we don’t want to get in the way of the cameras and we pretty much can not screw up since the event is televised. Also later on in the tourney, the players get really frustrated and most times take it out on the ball kids. So it takes a great discipline not to react negatively to there sometimes rude comments to the ball kids just because they are losing.

Then “Championship Sunday” comes along and then you have the 12 best ball kids and there is pretty much not much that is said by the monitors except go out there and have fun. But knowing that the championship is on the line, you need to be on your best game, you don’t want to be the reason why a player gets out of their rhythm. But once that last ball is hit, a sigh of relief, that you made it through the week. That’s a typical week for The Farmers Tennis Classic ball kid.

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