Watch a video of the Ball Boys and Girls Training Weekend at the National Tennis Centre.
Over the past year the Tennis Foundation has been working with LOCOG to train 300 ball boys and girls to work across the Olympic tennis and Paralympic wheelchair tennis events in the summer.
As part of LOCOG’s ‘Young Games Makers’ programme, application forms were sent to schools in the 6 host boroughs, along with Merton and Wandsworth, in September 2011. Schools were then invited to nominate a team of young people to take part aged between 16-18 years.
Selection events were held in November and since then, a series of training sessions have taken place, leading through to the recent training weekend in April held at the National Tennis Centre for the ball kids selected from Merton and Wandsworth.
At each training event, the young people were taught the rules of tennis and all the roles and responsibilities of a ball boy and girl, including lots of practical activity, demonstrations and practices.
Tom Gibbins Head of Education in the Tennis Foundation commented: “We’ve been pleased to work with LOCOG over the last year to help them deliver the London 2012 Ball Boys and Girls Programme. It’s a fantastic, once in a lifetime opportunity for the young people involved and we hope it will inspire them to stay involved with tennis for many years to come”.
LOCOG’s Sport Manager for Tennis Clare Wood added: “LOCOG are delighted with the 2 days of training at the NTC with the BBG’s (ball boys and girls) from the host boroughs of Merton and Wandsworth. It provided and invaluable opportunity for the BBG’s to work together on court with the tutors and live tennis taking place. The tutors were extremely happy with the progress made in the two days by all the BBG teams and with the attendance of nearly 100% nearly every BBG has benefitted from these training days.”
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