Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Matt Flegenheimer, the reporter, tries to catch a stray ball during agility drills at the United States Tennis Association ball boy tryouts.
“Just stay low,” I mumbled to myself. An old baseball coach once told me you look faster that way, and looking fast seemed like half the battle in the competition to be a ball boy at the United States Open.
For 10 sweat-inducing minutes on Thursday, I chased tennis balls, caught one-hoppers and made baseline-to-baseline throws as part of a mock tryout to be a ball boy — excuse me, the term is now ball person — for the tournament at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens this summer.
As a teenager growing up in Manhattan, I once signed up for the competition but had to cancel at the last minute. So even though this tryout was intended to give reporters a taste of what actual ball person contenders go through, it was also my chance to find out: Was I good enough to make it?
Organizers said they expected about 350 applicants for the 80 available slots, with a median age of 16. Anyone 14 or older can sign up. The hourly wage is $7.75.
“And you get free clothes,” said Avikar Singh, 15, who arrived six hours before the real tryouts began, to warm up with a classmate from Francis Lewis High School.
At around noon, Tina Taps, the Open’s director of ball persons, guided a dozen or so reporters and photographers to an indoor court. (It was raining.)
Her advice was simple: Stand next to the net, hands behind your back, and when the pro buries a shot in the nylon, scurry over, scoop it up and hustle to the sidelines.
Then came the throwing evaluations, during which contenders stationed behind the baseline were ordered to make one-bounce tosses of about 100 feet. Ms. Taps’ advice could be boiled down to this: Don’t hit anyone with a wayward tennis ball.
That part was easy enough. I was a pitcher in high school, once the fourth starter on the third-best team in an eight-squad independent school league in the city. Perhaps you’ve heard of me.
Despite a few shaky tosses, those standing to the side of my target, a veteran ball person on the opposite baseline, remained concussion-free.
The ball-collecting drills near the net, I thought, had gone just as well. I was calm. I was focused. I was, most important, so low I could kiss the playing surface.
I left the court, breathless but content, to meet with my evaluator. “Nailed it,” I thought.
“You did alright,” said Cathie Delaney, the assistant director of ball persons, still scribbling on my score sheet.
“Verdict?” I asked, struggling to conceal my heavy breathing.
Had this been a real tryout, she would have had me return for a throwing callback, Ms. Delaney said. My right fist pumped involuntarily.
But what about my agility at the net? Didn’t I look like a blur out there, a cheetah in white Adidas?
“You were hunched over,” she said. “Just run normal.”