Bright lights shining down on Arthur Ashe Stadium in Flushing Meadow – Corona Park during the US Open Tennis Tournament at the end of August. The August breeze catching the hair of Rafael Nadal as he prepares for first serve. He tosses the ball slightly to the left and swings with his powerful left-handed swing. The ball lands just wide of the service line, and the opponent Pablo Cuevas returns the ball back to Nadal. A shriek is heard by the line judge, indicating the end of the rally and the need for a second serve. Nadal takes the ball and hits it to the net, returning that ball to the man in the background, Mr. Jorgé Menendez, a ball boy at the US Open.
Jorgé Menendez (right)
Always in sprinters’ position, the ball boys of the US Open fight the hot sun and the demanding job of being able to react quickly enough to retrieve any ball that comes to their side of the net. Jorgé has been doing this for over three years, and it’s second nature to him. It started getting pretty boring for him, so he decided to spice things up. So what does he do that’s special on the hard court? In London during Wimbledon, the ball boys look all serious like a Royal Guard. How about the US open? The ball boys at the US Open display what seems like a professional and formal. He tried changing that notion by being a jokester. The natural jokester he is, whenever he senses a camera on him, he breaks out into a subtle yet amusing pose. Whether it be a wink, a shrug, or an exaggerated dramatization of retrieving a ball, he never fails in making the most stoic of ball boys crack a grin. When others are asked about him, they always mentioned how he makes the job more bearable when it tends to be boring. It is through his humor that he earned himself the title, “The Photobomber of Flushing Meadows.”
Ball boys at tennis tournaments rarely receive any recognition at big events like the US Open. They are usually overshadowed by the big name superstars and cinderellas that come and upset these superstars. The only recognition they get is when one of their buddies get featured on SportsCenter’s Not Top 10 Plays for slipping on the hard court in front of an audience of 20,000 people, not including the millions around the world watching the match on live television. It is safe to say that these ball boys do not want any recognition, but for Jorge it’s his chance to make the most out of the spotlight he is in.
Jorge was and still is not a diehard tennis fan. He still does not know all of the rules or the names of the famous people he retrieves and gives tennis balls to. When asked about why he even decided to try out for the job in the first place, his response like that of many other teenagers there was, “The US Open Tennis tournament is sponsored by Polo Ralph Lauren. Their clothes run for over $100. I’m usually bored over the summers anyway so I thought to myself, ‘Why not?’ All I have to do is run across a court and pick up a ball. How hard can it be? I get paid with clothes and money. I even have the chance of being famous and on national television if I make a nice catch or slip and fall on my butt. That’s cool!”
But when it is championship point, Nadal has zoned in on winning the Open Championship, and the stadium is in pin drop silence in anticipation of his next serve, the cameramen are going to pan and zoom into Nadal’s face, where you will find at the corner of your eye Jorgé’s unfocused pink tongue trying to create the illusion of him licking Nadal’s ear.
