Wycombe pupils are ball girls for Murray and Djokovic
1:30pm Friday 22nd June 2012 in Sport By Alan Feldberg
PUPILS from Wycombe High School have been rubbing shoulders with the best tennis players in the world this week.
They have been ball-girling at the Boodles tournament at Stoke Park, sitting courtside while global superstars like Novak Djokovic and British number one Andy Murray warm up for Wimbledon next week.
Among them was 14-year-old Hebe Grout.
She said: “I play a little bit of tennis and watch it on television.
“I’m always watching the ball girls and ball boys at Wimbledon and thinking, ‘I’d love to do that’.
“So this has been a great experience with all the stars here.
“I ball girled for Andy Murray twice and think he’ll do well at Wimbledon.
“He was beaten here, but I think he did that strategically to make sure he’ll reach his peak at Wimbledon.”
The highlight of the week was yesterday’s clash between Murray and Djokovic, although they were by no means the only big names on display.
Juan Martin Del Potro, Marin Cilic, Stanislas Wawrinka and David Nalbandian – in his first action since being disqualified from Queens – were also there.
For Wycombe High School, the week was the result of months of hard work.
PE teacher Rosie Akehurst said: “Boodles wanted to give a local school the chance to be ball girls rather than the children that do Wimbledon.
“We have club links with Dalgado Tennis – they coach here and use our facilities after school – and because Johnny Dalgado is involved at Boodles we got the opportunity.
“To have players like Murray and Djokovic on court in front of them is an amazing opportunity for the girls and about 80 applied.
“We selected 22 and they’ve been training since before Easter for this week.”
click2find
