An incident at Wimbledon puts self-effacing ‘ball kids’ in an unaccustomed spotlight

Wimbledon ball boys and ball girls are to be neither seen nor heard. They are chasing down stray tennis balls, rolling them to players on demand, distributing towels.

But there has been a bit of uncomfortable scrutiny on the “ball kids” in recent days, after Frenchman Adrian Mannarino bumped into one of the ball boys last week while walking back to his chair during a second-round victory over Japan’s Yuichi Sugita.

Although Mannarino downplayed the collision and said it was unintentional, the video replay appeared to show the Frenchman lowering his shoulder and barging through the youngster. The player was fined the equivalent of about $9,000 by the tournament and docked a point for “unsportsmanlike conduct” by umpire Marijana Veljovic, who determined the contact to be deliberate.

Later, Mannarino didn’t help matters by complaining, “I don’t think [the ball boy] hurt himself. It wasn’t a big bump. In fact, he went into me. I don’t know who has priority on the court. Is it the players or the ball boys? Can you do Wimbledon with just ball boys? I don’t know.”

Making the rounds on social media Tuesday was a clip of two-time Wimbledon winner Rafael Nadal tearing the top off a drink pouch and handing the scrap of litter to the nearest ball boy, who disposed of it in a trash can … that was located right next to Nadal.

It gave the appearance that Nadal was a prima donna, even though he looked to be entirely focused on the match and might not have seen the litter bin to his immediate left. Nadal has a reputation for treating people well — he stuck around to sign some autographs for spectators after a bitter loss Monday — so it could well have been an innocent mistake that just looked bad on video. Still, it once again put a ball boy in the spotlight, something the tournament doesn’t want.

On Tuesday, another star player, Novak Djokovic, defended both the players and the ball kids.

“I think most of us active players have been, if not all, ball kids at a certain stage of our tennis careers and our lives. So we all know how that feels,” Djokovic said. “I understand the excitement that goes in your head when you’re a ball kid because, you know, you’re looking up to the players, you’re excited to be part of the event. At the same time is a lot of pressure to do your job properly.

“So, yeah, players can be at times harsh. … You have to understand the players’ point of view, as well. We’re there to fight. Obviously, to have some matches and things that are happening in the midst of that fight when you don’t have much time to recover from one point to another, sometimes those four, five seconds, somebody brings a towel or recognizes the signal, you know, tosses the ball, can cause trouble for you. You can get time violation, which happened many times in the past.

“But [ball kids are] a very important part of this tournament, of tennis in general, and it’s wonderful to see with how much joy they’re doing what they’re doing.”

Leather lungs

Britain’s Johanna Konta naturally had lots of fans watching her back-and-forth match on Centre Court against Romania’s Simona Halep, at least one of them too enthusiastic.

On the final point of the match, with Konta up 40-15, it looked as if Halep had hit her shot long. Anticipating that, a female spectator let out a celebratory scream. It was premature, though, as the ball was in. The point continued, and Halep wound up hitting the ball into the net.

Halep looked to the umpire, but to no avail.

“I thought he’s going to repeat the point,” she said later. “I think it’s normal to repeat the point when someone is screaming like that.”

After the match, Halep shrugged off the unfortunate episode.

“I think everywhere, in every country, if you are playing with someone from that country, is the same,” she said. “The crowd has to be loud for the opponent. … I said before the match that I have no problems with that. Always when I play in my home country, is the same.”

Blast from the past

The parallels are undeniable and uncanny. Nine years after edging Roger Federer in the legendary 2008 Wimbledon men’s final, Nadal played a marathon match of identical length — four hours, 48 minutes — but lost to Luxembourg’s Gilles Muller.

The tournament was still buzzing Tuesday about the intensity of the Muller-Nadal match, which happened the day before. The match nine years ago, the focus of Jon Wertheim’s book “Strokes of Genius,” is widely considered the greatest in the history of tennis. Nadal pulled off a spectacular upset on that day, 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-7 (8), 9-7.

Despite the obvious comparisons to 2008 — Nadal, the length, the tournament — there were also stark differences.

First of all, Nadal lost. He was a gritty underdog nine years ago against the great Federer, but this time was an 8-1 favorite over Muller, 34, who had never won a professional tournament heading into this year (when he won two smaller ATP events). Monday, it was Muller who played the role of relentless, unbreakable bulldog.

Next, the setting was different. Yes, both were Wimbledon matches, but Monday’s was in the fourth round on Court 1, not the final at Centre Court. Unlike that marquee stage, the smaller Court 1 has neither a roof nor lights, and much of the match was played in the twilight.

And last, the final set Monday was interminable. There were 28 games in the fifth set Monday, as opposed to 16 in the final set of Nadal’s 2008 victory.

“Any time Nadal goes to a fifth set, I assume he’s going to win,” said Wertheim, a Sports Illustrated writer and Tennis Channel analyst. “You’ve got to give Muller a lot of credit for what he was able to do.”

sam.farmer@latimes.com

Follow Sam Farmer on Twitter @LATimesfarmer

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