WITH a little bit of luck, Kendall Tennis Club's Jaxson McHugh will be able to add a few more of the world's best tennis players to a list of those he has been on the same court as.
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McHugh heads to the inaugural ATP Cup in Sydney on Thursday hoping his brush with famous sportspeople will extend beyond Spanish superstar Rafael Nadal.
He will again be a ball kid at the newly upgraded Ken Rosewall Arena at Sydney Olympic Park when players such as Andy Murray, Dominic Thiem, Jurgen Melzer and Grigor Dimitrov take to the court.
There is already a link between Murray and Kendall after he played for the township at the 2016 Australian Open.
Nick Kyrgios and his Australian team will be in action in Brisbane, while Rafael Nadal will be in Perth for the first half of the week.
Winners from matches played between January 3-9 then head to Sydney for the finals between January 9-12.
The teenager said he was looking forward to again heading to Sydney after enjoying last year's event.
"It's just good to meet the different players and see the different countries because they're only playing on one court so you've got the best of the best," he said.
"Not everyone can be a ball boy because it's important to know the rules of tennis and match play and you need to be fit."
Each session a ballkid does will be either morning or night.
"Sessions are usually a few hours; each country will play two singles and a doubles match."
McHugh said he first became a ballkid after witnessing what older brother Connor was doing a few years ago.
"He started doing it with his mates and it looked pretty cool because he got to meet all these tennis players so I thought I'd give it a crack."
He only has a few more years left in the squad before he will be too old, but the 14-year-old indicated he would like to remain involved in the sport.
"I'll get two more years after this and then when you get to 15 or 16 that's it unless you want to be a linesman or an umpire," he said.
"I'm not sure what I want to do yet, I'm thinking about it."
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