Sport

Minimasters head to Champions Tennis at Royal Albert Hall

Champions Tennis at the Royal Albert Hall is the season-ending finale to the ATP Champions Tour. Former Grand Slam Champions, World No.1s and national icons compete in one of London’s most famed and iconic venues.

This year we sent Minimaster Bethany, 7, to the very special Kids Day celebrations, where she took part in behind-the-scenes fun and frolics before settling down to take watch some awesome tennis action.

The Saturday saw Greg Rusedski take on Frabrice Santoro in an exciting singles match, as well as a hilarious doubles dominated by the comedic (and still impressive) performance by Mansour Bahrami. A specially selected group of Ticketmaster competition winners were invited onto the court to help the four doubles players with their bags. More on that later.

But first, here’s what Bethany she made of her day out at Champions Tennis:


“I really enjoyed my trip to watch Champions Tennis at the Royal Albert Hall, it was great. When we arrived at Victoria station I got a cookie, which was really yummy, and then got on a bus (the No.52) to the Royal Albert Hall and got to see some of the sights of London as we drove passed.

“When we got into the venue we had to walk up about five flights of stairs, which was really tiring, but it was worth it when we got there! I got to play a few games of tennis with the other children who’d gathered for Kids Day and it was really cool to see so many kids excited about sport and tennis. I played one game with a net and one with bean bags. I then got to play a game with Judy Murray, who was lovely, and it was really fun to talk to her about her involvement in the sport and how proud she is of her two sons, Andy and Jamie.

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“After playing a few rounds we took our seats in the Royal Albert Hall and watched both the doubles and singles matches while we ate our lunch. It was nice.

“I would definitely tell all my friends to go next year because it is really fun to watch all the old pros out on the court – they don’t take the matches too seriously and it’s really entertaining to see them having fun on the court.

“I don’t think I can choose a favourite part of the day as I liked everything about it. My daddy had loads of fun too, and his favourite bit was watching me play tennis with Judy and the other kids. It was great and I even got a goody bag which had a colouring book, pencils, and stickers in it. Another really fun thing was how the audience had to help the umpire during the matches by holding up in/out signs to help decide whether the balls were in or out of play, that was really fun to be part of the action.

“My favourite player was Greg Rusedski and I was cheering for him all day!”


We also joined our lucky competition winners on the court who carried out bags for the players on the day.

The youngsters joined Bahrami, Ferreira, El Aynaoui and Pernfors as they entered the impressive main space, proving to be one of the many highlights of the day.

Take a look at some amazing pics below:

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