Tennis star licked by dog ball boy but never beaten

Venus Williams and Jack Russell cross Teddy. Photo / PHOTOSPORT

New Zealand's four-legged "doggy ball boys" have gone global after capturing the heart of tennis ace Venus Williams.

Mastiff cross Oscar (right), border collie Ted and Jack Russell cross Teddy debuted as ball boys at an exhibition tennis match between Williams and fellow Grand Slam-winner Svetlana Kuznetsova at the ASB Classic tournament in Auckland this week.

Teddy melted the heart of hard-hitting Williams and the former World No 1 - who yesterday won the tournament final beating Caroline Wozniacki - tweeted a series of selfies to her 1.17 milllion followers featuring her new buddy, who bears an uncanny resemblance to her own four-legged friend, Harry.

A video of the trio's "paw-fect" ball boy work has also gone global. Washington Post, USA Today, ESPN, Daily Mail and MSN are among media heavyweights to give extensive coverage to the ASB Bank-produced video, which had 228,000 views on YouTube by yesterday afternoon.

News website Mashable also posted the video and it had more than 32,000 shares on Facebook.

Venus Williams with Oscar the dog

Fellow video star Oscar's global fame comes eight years after Animals on Q boss Mark Vette rescued him from death row at the pound, aged 10 months.

Oscar was chosen as a ball dog just before Christmas.

"He's not the rocket scientist of the team, but you can see he's got a beautiful nature. He was there for the glamour," said his trainer, Rosie Miles.

Ted and Teddy started training eight weeks ago, before match organisers asked for a "big, slobbery dog", Miles said.

Oscar loved watching tennis, but the dog hired for his "muscle man" physique initially wasn't much interested in ball boy duties.

The toughest part of training the dogs was teaching them to resist the urge to return the ball to their trainer.

They needed to run across the court, collect the ball, drop it and turn around, just as a human ball boy or ball girl would, Miles said.

Vette and his team have highlighted the skills of rescue dogs by teaching three to drive and through the hit TV One show Purina Pound Pups to Dog Stars.

He hoped Oscar's story would encourage people to adopt rescue dogs, rather than buying from "puppy mills".

"Even these dogs that have had a really hard start can turn it around, become a mega-star and run alongside Venus Williams."