LONDON (Reuters) – Briton Jodie Burrage earned praise for helping out a distressed ball boy on Monday as she suffered a second successive first-round exit at Wimbledon.
Wildcard Burrage, comprehensively beaten 6-2 6-3 by Ukraine’s Lesia Tsurenko, reacted quickly at the start of the second set when the ball boy became unwell.
“He just said he was feeling really faint. He couldn’t actually really talk. It was quite distressing to see,” 23-year-old Burrage told reporters.
“Just tried to get him some sugar, gave him a Gatorade and a gel. The gel is not the nicest thing, so they managed to find some Percy Pigs (sweets) somewhere along the line in the crowd, which he got down and then started to feel better.”
Burrage thought the young lad, one of 250 ball boys and girls from local schools rigorously trained for the tournament, had suffered a panic attack.
“He was not in a good spot and I just tried to help as much as possible,” she said. “I actually had a panic attack once in juniors here, so I’ve been where he is. I kind of know a little bit how he was feeling.”
Londoner Burrage was one of 17 British players in the singles main draw, the most since 2001.
(Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Ed Osmond)
