The rain may have messed with the Roland Garros schedule on Wednesday but it couldn’t dampen the excitement of the seven children who travelled from Dubai to Paris to catch the quarter-finals at the Grand Slam event.
The lucky seven fought hard for a full season to win their respective categories in the Clark Francis Swiss Adidas Junior Masters Series in Dubai and their reward was a once-in-a-lifetime experience watching the sport’s very best battle it out on the clay courts of Roland Garros.
Accompanied by Clark Francis and tournament director Andres Gimeno, the winners are spending three days in Paris to attend some matches and go sight-seeing before heading to Euro Disney.
“Yesterday we went sight-seeing, we went to the Eiffel Tower and saw the clay court set up there. Many of the children hadn’t played on clay before,” Francis told Sport360°.
“So we walked over and said ‘how do we get to play on there’ expecting there’s a booking for five days in advance, they said ‘come back at four o’clock’. So we went down the Champs Elysees and we walked back and we played for 45 minutes. We felt the tennis gods had blessed us, it was amazing.
“It’s Miguel’s third year this year, he’s won our tournament three times but all the rest are newcomers and they’re just blown away. Even if it rains all day today they will still have had a great time.”
Francis’ son, Cameron, is a first-time winner and he made a late push in the final weeks of the Boys’ Green Series to win the trip to Paris.
“It was really exciting and quite relieving because I put a lot of work into it,” said Cameron.
“We went sight-seeing yesterday and went to the Eiffel Tower. It was a really fun experience going to play on a clay court, it was my first time to play on clay.”
Girls’ Green Series winner Coumba Ben was on top of the standings most of the season and was at a loss for words when asked to describe her experience in Paris.
“It’s really exciting, I can’t explain how I feel right now,” she said. “Winning the tournament and coming here to Roland Garros was my only target all year.”
Miguel Nau, 14, is on his third trip to Roland Garros, having won the CF tournament twice before but he said every year he gets to experience new things.
“We always do new stuff. Today I watched Rafa (Nadal) train for an hour and then I was watching the juniors. This is the first time I was so close to Rafa; it was really amazing, he’s my favourite player,” said Nau. “He’s very concentrated in practice, plays aggressive and I like how he plays.”
Samar Al Bakry travelled from Oman to Dubai throughout the season to take part in the tournaments and the 15-year-old says it was totally worth it.
“It’s really exciting for me to come here as it’s my first time to be here. And hopefully one day I can be here actually playing,” said the Omani teenager.
“I travelled from Oman every month to play in the tournament and I’m happy that all this driving back and forth paid off. Monfils is my favourite player so I’m excited to watch him today.”
