The Northern Territory had the special privilege to have three junior participants represent the NT as a ballkids at Australia’s 2025 ‘Summer of Tennis’ events.
A special shout-out to local Darwin players Lucy McNaught and Hunter Watling, selected from Darwin’s NT Ballkids program and Mya Priest representing Jabiru under Tennis Australia’s First Nations program.
Lucy McNaught had the experience to participate at the Adelaide International 2025 as a ballkid, sharing the court with familiar names from Darwin’s ProTour events, as well as meeting new professional players competing for the opportunity to play at the 2025 Australian Open following after the event.
Lucy has been a part of the NT Ballkids Program since the start of 2024, coming from a junior tennis player background, wanting to learn new skills and build new connections through multiple tennis pathways. Through her experiences as an NT Ballkid and travelling to Adelaide for their ‘Summer of Tennis Event’, she has discovered her favourite spot as a ballkid is at the net as she likes to be busy and to avoid being hit by a serve!
Due to her amazing performances across her week at the Adelaide International, Lucy was rightfully selected to ballkid at the Quater Finals! Lucy had the opportunity to ballkid for players such as Rinky Hijikata, Marcos Giron, Tommy Paul, Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, Markéta Vondroušová as well as Aussie Olympic gold medallist, Matthew Ebden. She also loved the freedom to watch Thanasi Kokkinakis, Madison Keys and Ons Jabeur in her free time.
Hunter Watling has been a dedicated participant of the NT Ballkids Program since 2023, and through that has attended regular trainings and ballkidded at the NT’s biggest tournaments that bring together the top junior and professional players to Darwin’s tennis courts. Hunter’s perseverance and skills as a ballkid during the Junior ITF’s (May & June) and the Darwin ProTours (September) of 2024 was one of the many reasons he was selected to represent NT at the Australian Open in 2025.
Hunter arrived early in Melbourne for the AO, hitting the ground running with trainings and team-building exercises before Day 1 of the Qualifying rounds. He has had a lot of highlights and experiences over the 2 weeks at the Aussie Grand Slam, including making new friends and impressing everyone with his reflexes – catching a wicked one-hander off a 180km/hr serve! It’s been amazing to see Hunter’s preparation and skills get recognised as he worked across the 3 biggest arenas at Melbourne Park during his time there, working on John Cain Arena, Margaret Court Arena, and the world-famous Rod Laver Arena.
Through ballkidding, Hunter has been up close to an absolute honour-roll of players including top Aussie Alex DeMinaur, women’s world number 2 Iga Swiatek, also Holger Rune, Elena Rybakina, Emerson Jones, Z.Z. Zhang, K. Nishikori – the list goes on!
Another special shout-out to Mya Priest who represented Jabiru as an Australian Open ballkid this year, finding herself as part of the largest ballkids crew in Australian Open history – overall there were 428 ballkids coming together from all over Australia! Mya started her journey as a ballkid through her involvement in tennis at her school, Jabiru Area, where she undertook ballkids training through the school’s tennis program. She continued to develop her skills with her involvement as a player at the National Indigenous Tennis Carnival in 2024, held every August at the Darwin International Tennis Centre.
Tennis Australia’s First Nation’s Ballkids program holds their selections at the National Indigenous Tennis Carnival, as junior First Nations tennis players travel from all over Australia to participate in this event. Mya was selected through this program, as she showed great skills and enthusiasm throughout the whole event. Mya got the chance to meet Evonne Goolagong-Cawley and Alexander Zverev during her time at the AO25, she also got up close to Novak Djokovic and the world’s number one, Jannik Sinner! We are so impressed with Mya’s work on and off the court by making new connections and having what could only be described as a ‘money can’t buy experience’ as a ballkid.
We at Tennis NT and their participating clubs couldn’t be prouder of Lucy, Mya and Hunter’s achievements this year.
Tennis NT is hosting an information session about their NT Ballkids Program on Saturday the 29th of March at the Darwin International Tennis Centre at 10:30am for those who are interested in learning about the program and having the opportunity to participate at one of Australia’s 2026 Summer of Tennis events!
Contact Tennis NT on 08 8981 5609 or tennisnt@tennis.com.au for more information.
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