WATCH: Roger Federer makes his return to Wimbledon, partners Kate Middleton for a special role
After the match, Roger Federer and Princess Kate visited the All England Club's Indoor Tennis Center to see the training of the teenagers.
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Kate Middleton and Roger Federer (Image via YouTube/@Wimbledon)
Ahead of the 2023 Wimbledon Championships, tennis legend Roger Federer and the Princess of Wales practiced how to be ball kids at the famous No.3 Court at the All England Lawn Tennis Club. Wimbledon celebrated the works of the Ball Boys and Girls (BBGs) through a film starring Federer and Princess Kate Middleton, the patron of AELTC, uploaded on YouTube.
In the video, the eight times Wimbledon champion rallied with the princess and gave some tennis advice to her. They then experienced how the ball kids work on the courts. A girl named Mollie taught the princess of her standing position on the sidelines and how to catch and throw the balls to the players.
Middleton heaped praise on the intense training session of the ball kids. She said, “With all the discipline and everything you’ve learned, you’ll be able to take it into so many other parts of your life, things like confidence and that feeling of pride with being on any of the courts is such a big moment.”
Roger Federer and Princess Kate visits All England Club’s Indoor Tennis Centre
After the match, Roger Federer and Princess Kate visited the All England Club’s Indoor Tennis Center to see the training of the teenagers. A total of 250 ball boys and girls work at Wimbledon between the age of 13 to 15.
Their training starts in February at the Raynes Park Community Sports Ground. These 250 children are selected from around 1000 applications from the local schools. They are taught things like how to throw the balls to the players, how to signal ball changes, etc. Every year, around 170 new ball boys and girls join the previous year’s 80 kids.
“This is proper practice. I’m really impressed at how much effort and training goes into being a ballkid during the Championships. I used to be a ballkid in Basel when I was nine of 10 and as I have always said: ‘once a ballkid always a ballkid’,” Federer could be heard saying in the film.
Meanwhile, this year’s Wimbledon Championships will be held from July 3 to 16. Federer won’t be a part as he took retirement from the sport last September at the age of 41. In the final game of his career, he paired up with arch-rival Rafael Nadal in a doubles match at the Laver Cup in London.
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Gouri Das
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