Noah O’Donnell with Team USA’s Frances Tiafoe and Serena Williams and Team Switzerland’s Roger Federer and Belinda Bencic.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
At just 9 years of age, young Tennis fanatic Noah O\u2019Donnell<\/strong> was the envy of the Nation, if not the World. Standing between Tennis greats, Roger Federer<\/strong> and Serena Williams<\/strong>, Noah was tasked with the coin toss between the USA <\/strong>and Switzerland Mixed Doubles<\/strong> match, at last night\u2019s sell out Mastercard Hopman Cup<\/strong> match.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Noah\u2019s selection came about through his involvement with the ANZ Tennis Hot Shots Program at the Blue Gum Park Tennis Club.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Blue Gum Park Tennis Club<\/strong> youngster, trains with Coach Matt Gibson through the Tennis Excellence system directed by Dan Sewell.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve been playing for about four years now, my Coach nominated me for the opportunity to be a coin toss kid at this year\u2019s Mastercard Hopman Cup. I was pretty excited to be chosen and couldn\u2019t believe it when I found out I\u2019d be tossing the coin for the USA v Switzerland game,\u201d said Noah.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Noah thanks a friend for the introduction to the sport that he now aspires to play professionally, claiming Federer and Rafael Nadal as his top idols.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cTennis is such a great game. I train three times a week, play pennants on a Sunday and play with my Dad whenever I can. I especially love staying up late with Mum to watch the games on the television,\u201d said Noah<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Dad, Brett O\u2019Donnell, attests to Noah\u2019s enthusiasm and ambition, saying the holidays have been jam packed with Tennis.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re always down at the courts, and if we\u2019re not playing the game, we\u2019re watching it. It such an honour for Noah to have been involved in this year\u2019s Mastercard Hopman Cup,\u201d said Mr O\u2019Donnell.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In a World first for Tennis, Federer and Williams faced off with respective mixed doubles partners Belinda Bencic and Frances Tiafoe to a history making sell-out crowd of 14,064<\/strong>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Switzerland ultimately defeated USA 2-1 after the live mixed doubles saw Bencic \/ Federer (SUI)<\/strong> defeat Williams \/ Tiafoe (USA) 4-2 4-3(3)<\/strong>, following expected Singles match victories from both top ranked players, Federer (6-4 6-1) and Williams (4-6 6-4 6-3).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mastercard Hopman Cup<\/strong> play continues throughout the week at RAC Arena<\/strong>. To find out more visit hopmancup.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Noah O’Donnell with Team USA’s Frances Tiafoe and Serena Williams and Team Switzerland’s Roger Federer and Belinda Bencic. At just 9 years of age, young Tennis fanatic Noah O\u2019Donnell was the envy of the Nation, if not the World. Standing between Tennis greats, Roger Federer and Serena Williams, Noah was tasked with the coin […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5812,"featured_media":13659,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5812"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}