AN eight-year-old boy is preparing for a VIP trip to Wimbledon to take part in Saturday's Olympic Torch ceremony.

William Spencer, from Malton, will be one of the youngsters lining the route taken by the torch as it travels through the tennis arena as part of its global relay to the Athens Games.

The ceremony will see the Olympic torch being lit on Centre Court, before being taken around the All England Club. It will then continue its journey to other landmarks in the capital.

William, who is a keen tennis player and competes for Malton Junior Tennis Club, won the chance to take part in the ceremony after entering a BBC competition run during Grandstand's coverage of the recent Davis Cup victory over Luxembourg.

The competition, run by the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), in association with the Wimbledon Championships, attracted more than 1,000 entries through the BBC Sport Academy website alone, with further entries received by the LTA website.

William is travelling to the ceremony early on Saturday morning with his parents and they will spend the day at the championships.

His mother, Sharon, said: "He is really excited. He knew the answer to the competition question 'who won Wimbledon last year?' straight away, because he watched it all, and he got his dad to go on the Internet and enter. He is a big tennis fan." The competition was part of the LTA's Play Tennis campaign, which is Britain's largest free sport participation event.

It involves more than 1240 clubs, park courts and schools which open to encourage more people to play tennis.