Tennis: Confessions of a US Open ballboy, reveals juicy baller bits

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The New York Observer has a revealing interview with Justin Hom, a 31-year old US Open ballboy who also holds a full-time job as a marketing director for American Express.

Justin has been a ballboy for the last 3 years and has been using vacation time to spend his days and evenings servicing some of the biggest ballers in the world. But it's all worth it to J-Hom:

...when you do a really good match, and last year I did a couple of great matches on the Grandstand, it's so fun! It's so exciting. The crowd is going crazy, you're sprinting around. I feel like I'm there. It's so fun.

But don't be fooled - it's not all fun and games for the ballpeople. J-Hom goes on to reveal a few juicy bits about some of the worst behaved ballers he's encountered:

I did Martina Navratilova's match one year, a mixed doubles match, and, not to me, but to this little girl, she started yelling at this little girl. I guess she got her the wrong water or something, and she was really, really mean about it. I've heard stories about her. A lot of the French guys--this is terrible--are pretty mean. They want the ball to reach at a certain height. You can't come close to them. They'll tell you to back up--like really rude, petty stuff stuff like that. We're busting our butt! They want their towel a certain way.

[Arnaud] Clement last year he was a real dick to a lot of kids. Just really mean. Give me a break. We're here to help you and you're giving us shit.

You don't say! But he admits they're not all bad:

Stanislas Warwinka was super nice. He was in a super tight match and he said thank you for the towel. Little things. He wouldn't bitch about anything. If they don't say anything to you, they're the nice ones.

Sam Querrey was like, 'Hey man, great toss," like fucking around a little bit and that was really cool.

Wow - the Frenchies seem really uptight while Martina, well, I'm not surprised by her behavior for some reason. She always seemed really tough and intense (read: she could beat the crap out of me.)

Source: The New York Observer