On day two of this year's Australian Open, play was suspended as temperatures reached 36 degrees on the court.
But Angas Haines, who has lived his whole life in Alice Springs, was unfazed.
"It was pretty hot in Melbourne, but I was used to it," he says.
The 12-year-old was one of two young territorians selected as ballkids for the prestigious event.
Speaking from his home courts back in Alice Springs, Angas casts his mind back to the bright lights and cheering crowds of last month.
"I thought it was going to be easy, but it's pretty hard," he says.
"But it was worth it."
What does it take to make it as a ballkid?
Dylan Archer from Palmerston was selected for ballkid duties at the National Indigenous Tennis Carnival in Darwin last year.
He says the job is all about awareness and urgency, and that it's tough to keep up with famously temperamental tennis stars.
"Some are nice, they help the ball kids out," he says.
"But if you didn't grab a ball quick enough, sometimes and the chair umpire has to say something, and you can definitely see that the players are a bit annoyed."
In the high-pressure environment of a grand slam tournament, he says players keep their young support crews on their toes.
"In one of my first matches, one of the players was a bit upset with himself, and he was going to hit the fence. But it looked like he was going to hit me so I got really scared and I flinched," Dylan says.
With 400 or so other ballkids from around Australia involved in the tournament, getting onto centre court for the headline matches requires a lot of experience.
"Especially the men's finals and finals in general, it's mainly the kids that have been doing it for three-plus years, and have the best urgency," Dylan says.
It's that kind of experience Dylan is keen to get in future tournaments.
"I really want to go to Melbourne again, so I'll try."
Learning from the greats, but from a distance
Dylan says there's so much to the game's subtlety that can be gleaned from courtside that doesn't get picked up by TV cameras.
"On court it's just so much better I reckon, because you can see what the players are doing a lot more," he says.
"You're really close and you can see what they do good, what they do bad."
Despite catching glimpses of high profile players like Daniil Medvedev and Novak Djokovic, Dylan says players are strictly off limits to star-struck ballkids.
"When you're in uniform, you can't talk to the players or take photos or anything like that," he says.
"You see a player, and you really want to talk to them – say it's Rafa Nadal – you've never seen them before but you can't do anything really."
Angas had one of the best seats in the house as the ball boy for Stefanos Tsitsipas's semi-final against Russian Karen Khachanov.
But he didn't have a chance to relax and watch the game.
"You have to be very quick and agile," he says.
"Get the ball, run back."
But he did get to meet last year's Australian Open champion Ash Barty — an experience he says was formative to the development of his game.
"We got to sit on these chairs on the side of Margaret Court Arena, and I already knew that she was there because I looked over," Angas says.
"So I got to have a hit with Ash Barty.
"Pretty cool."
