{"id":2472,"date":"2007-06-29T09:33:03","date_gmt":"2007-06-29T17:33:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2007\/06\/in_this_the_most_competitive_city_in_the_world_even_diving_around_like_a_monkey_for_tennis_balls_is_hard_job_to_get.html"},"modified":"2007-06-29T09:33:03","modified_gmt":"2007-06-29T17:33:03","slug":"in_this_the_mos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/06\/in_this_the_mos.html","title":{"rendered":"In This, The Most Competitive City In The World, Even Diving Around Like A Monkey For Tennis Balls Is Hard Job To Get"},"content":{"rendered":"

Becoming a U.S. Open ball person requires agility, speed, focus and most of all, a belief in oneself<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Making it to Center Court at the U.S. Open requires speed, agility, determination, and focus — that’s true for the likes of such top seeds as Andy Roddick and Venus Williams, and just as much so for the ball boys and ball girls who snatch out-of-play balls off the court.<\/p>\n

At least, that’s what I learned yesterday when I tried out to be one at the 2007 U.S. Open.<\/p>\n

I was number 263 of nearly 400 candidates vying for 75 rookie slots at this year’s Open. In two weeks, the outstanding among us would be invited back for a callback tryout and an interview. Some will go on to work during the Open’s qualifying rounds, and a select few would make it to the final draws.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

I asked a girl standing next to me, Aishwerya Sharma, 12, how she felt. She said “confident.”<\/p>\n

“I hope she will make it,” her mother, Hem Lata, told me. “She’s tall enough and mature.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(By the way, is everyone planning on doing a first-person story about trying out this week<\/a>?)<\/p>\n

See also: U.S. Open at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Becoming a U.S. Open ball person requires agility, speed, focus and most of all, a belief in oneself: Making it to Center Court at the U.S. Open requires speed, agility, determination, and focus — that’s true for the likes of such top seeds as Andy Roddick and Venus Williams, and just as much so for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2472\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}