The other kids kept throwing his borrowed racket over the fence when eight-year-old Devin Mullings played tennis on his local court in the Bahamas.

Now the world number 1,025 is playing singles at the Beijing Olympics alongside Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. He cannot wait to get his picture taken with them.

?Talk about being in the right place at the right time,? said the diminutive 22-year-old, who came to the Olympics to play doubles and then got called up as a last-minute replacement in the singles after two other players got injured.

?It was like?wow,? he said of the moment he heard, while practising, that he had a chance to hit the big time.

Mullings, who studied at Ohio State University, was still shaking his head in disbelief.

At 5 feet 6 inches (1.68 metres) he is the shortest man in the tournament. On Sunday, he was walking tall. It was difficult to wipe the grin off his face. He could not wait for his first round clash with Argentine Agustin Calleri.

Before that, he joins fellow Bahamian Mark Knowles in a first round doubles match against top seeds Mike and Bob Bryan of the United States.

?I started when I was eight years old. They had some tennis courts behind my primary school in Freeport. I just used to hang out there and just watch the tennis. I needed some place to hang around until my parents came to get me,? he said.

?One day I just decided to play. I tried to play. At first I wasn?t very good and the kids that were there weren?t nice. They would take my racket and throw it over the fence.?

That made him even more determined and he asked his father, a mechanical engineer, if he could have private lessons. He ended up number one in the Bahamas after training in Florida.

Mullings cheerfully admits to being star-struck in Beijing sharing a locker room with Federer and Nadal.

?I don?t want to bother them too much but I want to get as many photos as possible and meet them all. It is a once in a lifetime experience.?

So what would Mullings say today to the kids who chucked his racket over the fence?

?They really saw how much I improved, so they really respect my tennis game. It is amazing how many places tennis has taken me. Hopefully I can go further. I think I have just scratched the surface.?