Sport
31 January, 2024
Harry Allan fullfills a dream
Beulah's Harry Allan has fulfilled a lifelong dream over the last two weeks as a ball kid at the Australian Open tennis.
After failing to make it past the first trial in 2023 after applying in 2022, the 14-year-old was more determined to make selection for this year's event.
In May 2023, he applied again and trialed to be a ball kid in Mildura. This time, he was successful in making it to Level 2 trials in Melbourne and on July 21 he was notified of his success in making the ball kid squad, the final 425 from three thousand that applied.
Harry then attended five training sessions at Melbourne Park. Each weekend, he and his mother, Mez, would travel to Ballarat and take the train to Melbourne.
As a first-year ball kid, Harry then put his training into practice at the Wheel Chair Championships and the December Showdown, the latter where the best juniors across Australia participate.
Whilst not at training, he had to do online learning with the Australian Open's Workplace Operations Partner, SafetyCulture.
January 3, the Australian Open media team came out to his farm to do a story on Harry regarding his journey. Filming took six hours for a 90-second clip.
In the video, he said that he couldn't wait to see behind the scenes of the Australian Open as it will be an amazing experience and that he just wants to be the best that he can be.
Sunday, January 7, Harry attended orientation day at Melbourne Park. During this time the kids received a tour of Melbourne Park and spent time on court with Casper Ruud. Each ball kid was presented with their hat which had their ball kid number on it. Harry was number 181.
Every ball kid had to give full availability for the tournament's duration and nightly text messages were sent informing Harry of his schedule for the next day's play.
Throughout the tournament, Harry got to ball kid for those at the top of their game, one of which was eventual winner Jannick Sinner on Margaret Court Arena as well as US star Coco Gauff.
Another highlight was being a ball kid to a young 15-year-old Australian, Emerson Jones, who made it through to the junior girls' single final losing to Slovak's Renata Jamrichova.
Jones was the first Australian in 16 years to make the final and is now the highest-ranked Australian junior in more than a decade, sitting at number three in the world.
Allan also had the opportunity to ball kid for the hearing impaired on the second last day of the tournament.
At the beginning of his shift, Harry would be allocated to a court for that entire shift with five other ball kids. Shifts would normally last between six and eight hours. On cool days, the kids would be on court for one hour and then one hour off which then moved for 45 minutes on hot days.
After every shift, a supervisor would give the kids feedback for improvement to occur with each shift.
Harry loved every day he spent on court. He got to experience many courts including court-six, which was the new Courtside Bar through to Show Court Three, Kia Arena and Margaret Court Arena.
He said it was a memorable experience.
"It went way too quick. Being a ball kid is a unique experience and isn't as easy as you think as it requires a lot of thinking," he said.
"I'll be applying again for next year."