:haha:
I guess they aren't strict about the recruiting of ball-boys. I remember when I applied to be a ball boy at Roland Garros there were physical condition to be met.
They wanted teenagers who weren't taller than 1.75 m (which I find to be disgrace as I was automatically disqualified before entering the physical tests. In my opinion there is nothing wrong with having a ball boy who is taller than most of the players) and there were going to be fitness tests like 40 minutes of aerobic activities and they would also test your ball throwing/receiving skills. Anyways point being, during these physical tests, all the fatties will easily eliminated and you avoid ending up with chubby and clumsy looking ball boys/girls for your tournament. They should do the same in America.
I'm not sure if they can do that in Miami and Indian Wells simply because they don't get a lot of volunteers. Spring break for school age children is a different time than spring break for the college students, and I know that IW has had problems in the past covering all of the courts. I was there this year, didn't notice anyone that stood out. Actually, some of their ball kids were impressive with their speed and professionalism. LA has tryouts each year, but it's a summer tournament and many more children are available to work there.
When Miami was still the Lipton, they only allowed kids ranked in the state of FL (in tennis of course) to ballboy. Perhaps the rules are different now.
They just stated the obvious, when was the last time you saw so many fact ballkids in 1 tournament? in switzerland we make sure we feed our kids good healthy food!:devil:
its funny to hear this since I'm currently a ballboy at the Sony Ericsson Open. Yea there are no physical conditions to be met at this tournament. I think they got about 100 more ballboys then they needed this year. So I don't know.
Well, obviously the fat ballkids shouldn't be out there RUNNING AROUND. They should be perched on a sofa with their playstations. Geeez, give the kids some credit... and a break.
look at it in a positive way...at least they are off of their couches and doing stuff. Watching the pros play might inspire them to at least pick a sport.
I would also have to agree with Fee that I didn't see any fat nor chubby ballkids in IW.
i saw this adorable little chubby boy at IW and he was doing just as good a job as any of the kids, in fact he was doing a better job than one of the skinny stick boys.
They did an experiment on Tyra where they did a physical fitness test with a woman who was 220 pounds against a woman who was 110. The "out of shape" and "lazy" bigger woman outran, outswam, outlifted, and performed miles better than the "healthy" and "in shape" thin woman.
For ballkids, it's more important that they are alerted on the court and have the sense in what they are doing. In IW, I spent lots of time in the outside smaller courts and some of them, fat, thin, tall or short, drove the umpire crazy as they were running around the court without truly understand what need to be done.
I dunno... the ballgirls seem fit enough for me and the red outfit looks really nice on them. About half of the boys seem overweight for their age, though, and I'd have liked to see them wear all red as well.
Not a big issue by any means, they do their job in a fine manner.
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