The All England Club’s bid to replace ball boys and girls with trained dogs at Wimbledon suffered a major setback when the pooches refused to return the balls back.
According to a report in the British portal, The Daily Star, an attempt was made by a local tennis club to teach the dogs to fetch balls and return them, but though they fetched the ball, cannines refused to drop them and had to be offered treats to get the ball back.
"Our players did find themselves in a game of tug-of-war," club coordinator Martin Schiller said.
"We had a stash of treats on the sidelines to offer up as a bit of encouragement which certainly did the trick.
Every year around 1,000 teens apply to work at the tournament. A quarter of the applicants are chosen to take part. Ball boys have been used since the 1920s but girls were only introduced in 1977.