WHEN 12-year-old Keilor tennis player Mikallie Baroch marches out onto court at this month’s Australian Open she might just draw a few double takes from the tennis-loving Melbourne crowd. In fact, she may even be asked to sign a few autographs.
Last week young Mikallie began pounding the courts around Rod Laver Arena, not as a player but as one of the more than 300 ball kids who will work at this year’s Australian Open.
Standing almost six feet tall, Mikallie, or Miki, as she’s known to her tennis friends, will not swing a racquet or hit a single ball at this year’s Australian Open, but she’ll probably be mistaken for someone who does, a fairly famous someone.
And who better to have as your doppelganger than Maria Sharapova, the towering 19-year-old Russian beauty who will be one of the star attractions at this year’s Open, which kicked off officially on Monday and will run until 28 January.
“She’s six foot tall and she just looks like a Sharapova,” Helen Baroch, Mikallie’s proud mother, told Star last week.
Not only does she bear a striking resemblance to Sharapova, she’s also quite good friends with the Russian tennis star, with the two forming a friendship when Mikallie’s father, Michael Baroch, coached Sharapova three years ago when she began her rise up the tennis ranks.
“One time I had Maria shopping with Miki and people were stopping me in Chapel Street and telling me what two beautiful daughters I had,” Mrs Baroch said.
A tennis fan once asked Mikallie for her autograph, thinking she was Anna Kournikova’s sister.
“She (Sharapova) used to come over for dinner when she came to play the Australian Open,” Mikallie told Star just before she left for her first on-court session last Thursday afternoon.
Mikallie has been playing tennis since she was five, and said she hopes one day to be in Maria’s place – travelling to all the corners of the globe, earning a living on the court.
“I want to be able to travel the world and play all the big Grand Slam tournaments like the Australian Open, Wimbledon,” she said.
But for now, Mikallie’s just excited about the prospect of maybe being able to tread the boards with her favourite player – Sharapova – or maybe step on to centre court with Roger Federer, the big male drawcard for this year’s Australian Open.
