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17 May 2018 | Tennis ACT

As part of the ACT Claycourt International #1 Pro Tour event held at the Canberra Tennis Centre from March 17-25 a number of partner schools participated as ballkid squad for some of the world’s up and coming female players.

Students from Gold Creek School, Merici College, Giralang Primary School, and Lyneham High School gained international experience and important skills with each school forming a squad for one day throughout the event.

Lyneham High School student and Ainslie Tennis Club member, Rory, shared his experience with his local club (article reproduced with permission of Ainslie Tennis Club)

On Friday 23 March, Lyneham High School students were invited to ball kid the women’s ACT Claycourt International at the Canberra Tennis Centre. All the students who signed up (approx. 9) walked from school to the tennis centre.

Once we got there we split into two teams, team one to ball kid two of the four matches and team two to ball kid the other two. We all got given lunch and a cool hat to keep and we headed out to a spare court to do some training. We rolled the ball and got told what to do in different scenarios. We walked over to our courts just in time for the matches to start.

I was surprised how hard they hit the ball and how skillful they were. It was really nerve wracking because it would be really embarrassing if we made a mistake. The first match was Ellen Perez (AUS) vs Miyu Kato (JPN). Miyu Kato was really good and she was a really good sport. We had a 20 minute break before getting back on the court to ball kid our second match, Abbie Myers (AUS) vs Gabriella Taylor (GBR). It went down to a tie-breaker but Gabrielle Taylor won in the end.

At the end of the day we were all happy about the great experience and we were really tired so were were all grateful that it was over and we could go chill at home

A huge thank you to all of the participating partner schools and to Rory for sharing his experience.

Any schools who are interested in participating in future events can contact Tennis ACT School Development Coordinator Geoff Barlett on [email protected] or (02) 6160 7800.