UAE residents Giuseppe Musico of Italy and his wife, Frenchwoman Sandrine Troeira, smiled from ear to ear at the Dubai Tennis Stadium after being asked a very legitimate sporting question: ‘What brings you to the tennis stadium here in Dubai, after all, you belong to football-obsessed countries’?
“Ah, we love tennis, we play tennis, and we have our son (Samuel Musico), who is a ball kid in this Dubai tournament,” Giuseppe said with a beaming smile.
This French-Italian couple couldn’t stop admiring the organisers of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships.
“This tournament brings a lot of great players, this is so important for the tournament, the quality of tennis, just now we were watching the qualifiers, is so good,” Sandrine said.
“I love Dubai organisation because we are close to the players, because you can be really close to them. I like to be here during the day, to have lunch and stay all day.”
Her husband says he can vouch for the professionalism of the tournament organisers.
“We have been really impressed, the organization has been very good always,” said Giuseppe who has watched several top-notch tennis tournaments in Europe, including the French Open, with his wife.
“We can speak on behalf of the ball-kid organisers in Dubai, they are taking steps to improve every year, that’s why we really love this tournament.”
Being a ball kid in Dubai, their elder son also got to retrieve and pass the ball to some of the biggest names in the sport.
“Last year, he had pictures with Novak Djokovic, and the ball, the wristband were signed by him. He also had pictures with Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev, all the big players,” Giuseppe said.
Remarkably, last week their son also performed his duty in the semifinal featuring Giuseppe’s compatriot Jasmine Paolini who went on to win the final.
“This year he was the ball kid when Paolini was playing the semifinal and he was so happy because he is also half-Italian. At the end of the match, we had a photo with Paolini,” he said.
“We are so happy now that she won the final. We are super excited and super proud.”