Top tennis professionals start trend to get their own tennis balls on court

The professional tennis playing fraternity is experiencing a revolution, owing to the wave of anti-ballboy sentiment striking the sport in recent months. It all started in November when Rafael Nadal was going through his normal, interminable, deeply irritating, 19-bounce warm-up routine before each service. His first serve was a let, having hit the net-cord. Although that ball was quickly routed back to him by the network of ballboys, he rejected it and demanded another ball, which was duly bounced to him by a service-line ballboy. His opponent, Roger Federer, who has a much more chilled serving routine, clearly came to a decision at that point. When it was his turn to serve, he asked the service-line ballboys to stand aside and simply drop the balls they were holding. Federer then moved around the back of the court picking up the balls nearest to him, using the technique all players learn at an early age - tapping the ball quickly with the racquet strings so that the ball bounces up. Then he actually picked up one of the balls by lifting it between his racquet head and tennis shoe. Averred Federer, 'I suddenly remembered how fun it is to pick up the balls that way. We always used to do this when we were kids.' Reluctant at first, Nadal joined in the fun after a couple of games. In addition to the bounce and lift techniques, Nadal also used the scoop method where the player quickly scoops the ball up with the side edge of the racquet, keeping the ball glued to the strings, a technique widely used in badminton. Soon both players were improvising, for example, chipping the ball with their tennis shoes against the back wall and collecting it as it bounced back. At the start of the next set, the two players asked for the bottom of the net be lifted a few inches so they could hit the balls along the ground with their racquets to each other from opposite sides of the court. 'There's quite a skill in this,' maintains Federer. 'You aim to get the ball to roll at just the right pace so that it stops as close to your opponent as possible. There's a potential lawn-bowler, or in my case boule-player, deep down in every tennis player.' For Nadal, in particular, this has been a liberating, life-changing experience. Instead of obsessively bouncing the ball, wiping his brow and executing a range of minute routine actions before each point, he now winds up in just a second or two, having himself selected and picked up the balls he wants to play the point with. He's even become less obsessed by which ball to choose. 'Suficiente!' he exploded. 'We change the balls every seven games. How different are they really gonna be?!' The International Federation of Balloys and Ballgirls is in crisis talks as many other players on the circuits, including the Venus sisters, have taken up the trend. So far, another obsessive ball-bouncer and selector, Novak Djokovic, has resisted but sources say that even he is likely to relent soon.