Laurel Leff Photo.
Jesus Garzon Ospina, a slight boy with a mouthful of braces, has two goals for this year’s national tennis tournament beginning in town this week: To enjoy his 14th birthday on Aug. 23, smack in the middle of the tournament; and, unlike last year, to be selected to work in the stadium for the marquee matches.
Jesus (pictured above), a Colombian-born rising 8th grader at New Haven’s John C. Daniels School of International Communication, considered those goals as he joined an orientation for the tournament, which begins Thursday.
There will be no more ball boys or boy girls at the New Haven Open tennis tournament. They’re all “ball persons,” even though the term didn’t seem to fit the mostly prepubescent crowd clustered around the Yale Bowl for the orientation Saturday morning. They came to get oriented for their work dashing around the court and scooping up balls once play begins.
Jesus didn’t need much orienting; he was a ball person last year too. At the end of this week, he’ll take his place among the 100 or so other kids stationed one at each corner, two more at the net, for each of the tournament’s matches.
The New Haven Open has become a women’s only event, including both singles and doubles. At the same time as the New Haven Open, the Yale Bowl also will host qualifying rounds in men’s, women’s and doubles’ for the U.S. Open in Queens, which begins Aug. 29; that means more work for the “ball persons.” The premier event of the 10 days of tennis will be top-ranked Caroline Wozniacki’s bid to win the New Haven tournament for the fourth time.
Jesus saw Wozniacki play in the semi-finals last year, although not from the court. He sat in the stands, invited by another ball person who had tickets. Wozniacki won that match and went on to win the tournament.
No Nikes
Jesus remembers more than the matches from last year; he remembers all the rules too. He knows, for example, that he can’t wear the Nike sneakers he sported Saturday (“Ball Person Guidelines” Rule #5: No black sneakers) because they make marks on the court. Of the 18 rules, which include shorts pulled up, waist level, no large jewelry, no leaving without permission, only one was hard to follow, he said. “No loud noises,” even off court, was the tough one, because the ball persons liked to play games between matches.
Even though he remembered exactly what he’s supposed to do, Jesus didn’t seem to mind all the waiting around during orientation on the hazy Saturday morning. He patiently retrieved his red T‑shirt and black shorts, happy that they carry the brand name “Fila” again. He proudly displayed his new credentials; he turned last year’s into a key ring.
Parsa, left, and Jesus.
In line for tournament tickets — a perk of being a ball person — Jesus immediately started chatting with a boy he recognized from last year. The boys relived the 2010 tournament’s greatest hits: the pro they liked as a player but not as a person because he screamed at them every time he missed a serve; the other ball person who gathered up the extra dollar everyone seemed to have left over from the $9 a day they received to buy food (another perk); the last two winning points of Connecticut native James Blake’s unofficial match.
The other boy, Parsa Raissi, a 12-year-old from Rhode Island, had just returned from being a ball person at the Rogers Cup, a major tennis tournament in Montreal. “He’s a tennis groupie,” Parsa’s father chimed in.
Jesus is not. He readily admits to preferring soccer and baseball to tennis. What Jesus likes about being a ball person is the chance to run around the courts and revel in the heady atmosphere.
Jesus became interested in being a ball person when his sister, who is four years older, did it a few years ago. “I saw her running all over the place and it made me want to do it,” he said.
Last year, he was nervous that he wouldn’t make it, so he went to five tryouts rather than the required four.
The tournament holds seven tryout sessions during July, each attended by about 60 kids. During the tryouts, the kids learn what it takes to be a ball person, which means the quickest, easiest ways to get the balls back to the player. They also need to demonstrate the speed and endurance it will take to get through a match.
Megan Wasilewski.
Fourteen ball persons are assigned to each match, with six rotating in at any one time. Just about all the kids who come to the requisite number of tryouts get to do it, said Megan Wasilewski, the ball persons’ coordinator.
Jesus didn’t know that. “I completely messed up a few times in tryouts,” he said, which is why he went to a fifth one.
The Road From Colombia
That good-natured persistence has marked his life.
Jesus was born in Cali, Colombia, in 1997. In 2002, his father, who was in the Colombian military, had to flee the country. “I’m not sure what happened,” said Jesus, who was 5 at the time. “They threatened us, but didn’t harm us.”
The family, which included his mother and father, his older sister, a half brother, and an infant sister, moved first to Ecuador, where they stayed for seven months. “They threatened us there too,” Jesus said.
The family fled again, this time to the United States. Not knowing much about the country, his father told immigration officials he wanted to go to New York City. But when a Colombian native he knew warned him against living in New York, Jesus’s father changed his answer.
“He then said he wanted to go somewhere around New York,” Jesus said. “That’s how we ended up in Connecticut.”
In 2003, the family moved into the Melita Welcome House in Guilford, which provides temporary housing for refugees and is run by the town’s First Congregational Church.
They then moved to New Haven. His mother got a job working for Honeywell in Hamden. His father began a series of jobs in a hotel, a Colombian restaurant, and for a uniform manufacturer. He too now works for Honeywell. His parents take different shifts.
The family just moved to West Haven after living in three different homes in New Haven.
Since first grade, Jesus has attended John Daniels, a New Haven elementary school that teaches classes in English and Spanish. “It was particularly difficult at the beginning,” Jesus said. “I had to stay back in the first grade because of poor English.”
Jesus now speaks perfect English and does well in school. “I got honors in all four marking periods,” he said, adding that he earned A‑pluses in advanced math.
Jesus said he has the same reaction to taking tests and to being a ball person.
“At first, I’m all shaky and start to feel a little weak,” he said. But once he gets going, he gains confidence.
A Winnowing Field
For a not-quite 14-year-old, Jesus has a mature sense of his own strengths and limitations. He knows, for example, that he’s a good runner. In races, he starts out fast and knows he can keep it up. He’s got stamina too. But he also knows “there are two or three kids who have stamina and are faster than me.”
Characteristically, Jesus has set realistic goals for the New Haven Open. To celebrate his birthday, he said, he “treated himself” to two tickets for day rounds and two tickets for night rounds on the special day. The other tickets he’s entitled to are for his family.
His other goal, being a ball person for the final rounds in the stadium, will be harder to achieve. “All the kids like being in the stadium a lot,” said Wasilewski, 25, who is now the head coordinator and was herself a ball person for eight years. “It’s like being on center stage.”
She said all the ball persons are guaranteed matches through Sunday. As the tournament field winnows, so does the need for ball persons. Many are informed they are no longer needed.
Tournament officials keep an eye on the ball persons in the earlier rounds, looking for the right on-court, and off-court demeanor. “We can’t be running around trying to find them. We have to know they’re responsible,” said Wasilewiski, who will soon begin her first teaching job at St. Rita’s in Hamden.
Jesus would like to be one of the select few on the court and in the stadium with the top players.
“All we can do is hope,” he said.
Hey that's me!