26 The Queens Courier • AUGUST 27, 2015 for breaking news visit www.queenscourier.com Teens from Little Neck and Flushing to serve as US Open ball persons BY ALINA SURIEL [email protected] @alinangelica It’ll be the experience of a lifetime. Two Queens kids from the NY Junior Tennis and Learning (NYJTL) program will be front and center as ball persons at the U.S. Open next week to assist their favorite players throughout the games. Shelly Yaloz of Little Neck and Gabe Sifuentes of Flushing will be two of six NYJTL students who beat out hundreds of others for the honor of serving as ball persons this year. Ball persons stand courtside at tennis games to retrieve stray tennis balls, replace old balls with new ones and do other tasks such as supply players with towels or bottles of water. The competition to make it as a ball person is intense, with prospective candidates tested on how fast they can run and how far they can throw, among other qualifications. As part of the program, NYJTL requires all of its participants to try out for the prestigious summer job, in addition to daily 4-hour training sessions during the summer and fitness conditioning and training. Yaloz, 14, has been playing tennis with NYJTL since she was 8 years old and has never been a ball person before. She is proud of her competitive spirit, which she uses to her advantage as a tennis player. “I’m a big fighter; in any match, I’ll try to fight,” she said. “I like the feeling of winning.” Sifuentes, 15, attends St. Francis Preparatory School in Fresh Meadows and has been a ball person at the U.S. Open before and says that he learned a lot from the experience. He also used to attend the games every year with his family, even before he got the chance to actively participate on the courts. “You can watch the pros deal with situations when they’re under pressure, so you can put that experience into your life and your tennis tournaments,” Sifuentes said. Elena Bantovska, director of player development and competition at NYJTL, said that kids travel from all over the country to try out as ball persons, and the staff at the tennis center hoped that their students would be inspired by seeing their peers on the courts with the pros. “It’s a huge experience to be on the court with one of your role models. That inspires them to do better and hopefully to compete on the grand stage as well,” Bantovska said. Photo courtesy of New York Junior Tennis and Learning Gabe Sifuentes and Shelly Yaloz have known each other since they began playing tennis at the NYJTL at around 8 years old. Photo courtesy of New York Junior Tennis and Learning Gabe Sifuentes and Shelly Yaloz have known each other since they began playing tennis at the NYJTL at around 8 years old. FOR MORE ON THE U.S. OPEN SEE PAGE 76 Whitestone teen crowned USA National Miss 2015 BY ALINA SURIEL [email protected]/@alinangelica Whitestone resident Katherine McQuade beat out 29 other beauty queens to be crowned USA National Miss 2015 in Walt Disney World earlier this month. McQuade, a 19-year-old sophomore at Marymount Manhattan College, began participating in pageants at the age of 10 and has competed in about 150 in her career. She says that pageants played a huge part in helping her growth from a timid young girl into a confident adult. “I was such a shy child growing up, I couldn’t even talk on the telephone,” McQuade said. “Pageants instilled in me communication skills, confidence, poise and grace, and helped me become the person I am today.” McQuade’s main platform in the USA National Miss pageant was to promote and raise funds for pancreatic cancer research in honor of her grandmother, who died from the disease. McQuade has been working for the cause since age 9 by selling handmade pot holders and donating all proceeds to the Lustgarten Foundation. She was inspired to use the craft for charity because it had been an activity she enjoyed with her late grandmother, who gave her a pot holder kit as a holiday present. While McQuade has raised over $5,000 for pancreatic cancer research by selling pot holders in 16 states, she is far from finished with helping out the cause. The beauty queen is determined to have her pot holders reach all 50 states and raise $25,000 for pancreatic cancer research by the time she’s 25. Raising funds for pancreatic cancer is not the only civic service the young beauty performs. She also created her own mentoring program at St. Luke’s school in Whitestone for pre-K students, among numerous other volunteer efforts which total over 5,264 hours of community service. Thanks to her extensive community involvement, she has been the recipient of a Lifetime Presidential Award for Volunteer Service, featured on Time Warner Cable NY1 “Queens Person of the Week,” and has been on the cover of Supermodels Unlimited Magazine’s Role Model edition. McQuade, a competitive dancer who aims to someday be a Radio City Music Hall Rockette, says that winning this pageant is only the beginning of her crowning dreams. “I’ve been doing this for so long it would be a little silly not to keep going all the way,” she said. “I want to be Miss Universe, Miss America, Miss United States. I’m going to go Photo courtesy of Katherine McQuade for it all.”
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