By Xavier Smerdon
RUNNING around all day in the summer sun might not seem like fun to most people but for one Werribee resident it is a dream come true.
Fifteen-year-old Sam Murphy has been selected to be a ball boy at next year’s Australian Open tennis competition.
The busy Year 9 student, who also works as a pharmacy delivery boy after school, said he got the idea of being a ball boy after seeing his friend Dean do it last year.
“He did it last year and I saw him at the Australian Open and I thought it would be pretty cool,” Sam said.
“It looked like a really good opportunity and something you can say you did.”
Sam has been playing tennis since he was only seven years old.
The prospect of collecting balls for has favourite player, David Nalbandian, sounds pretty exciting to him.
“That would be awesome, but I don’t know what my chances are,” he said.
Sam was chosen after three rigorous selection rounds and five training days.
“There were lots of drills involving rolling the balls and stuff like that,” he said.
“It was a bit hard to learn everything but we got that hang of it.”
He said his mum Maxine was also looking forward to the event.
“She’s pretty excited because all the parents get a ground pass for every day of the tournament,” he said. While tennis is what he loves now, Sam said he would like to be a sports journalist when he gets older.
