Congrats to wildcard Nicolas Mahut, who won the Hall of Fame Tennis Championship on a wet weekend in Newport. In fact, Saturday’s semifinals were rained out, so he had to take-down Michael Russell Sunday morning before dispatching Lleyton Hewitt in the Final that afternoon 5-7, 7-5, 6-3. John Isner lost to Hewitt in the other Sunday-morning semifinal. (Nearly had a rematch of the longest match in tennis history!). Mahut then played a third match on Sunday, teaming with Edouard Roger-Vasselin in a doubles semifinal triumph over Marcelo Demoliner and Andre Sa. He and Roger-Vasselin then won the doubles title on Monday over Americans Tim Smyczek and Rhyne Williams. Productive weekend for the marathon man!
Those enshrined at the Tennis Hall of Fame this year included Martina Hingis, Thelma Coyne Long, Cliff Drysdale, Charlie Pasarell, and Ion Tiriac.
ATP-250 Tournaments were also played on clay in Bastad, Sweden (Singles winner: Carlos Berlocq / Doubles winners: Simon Stadler and Nicolas Monroe) and in Stuttgart (Singles winner: Fabio Fognini / Doubles winners: Facundo Bagnis and Thomaz Bellucci).
The WTA hosted two International-level clay-events in Budapest (Singles winner: Simona Halep / Dooubles winners: Andrea Hlavackova/Lucie Hradecka) and in Palermo, Italy (Singles winner: Roberta Vinci / Doubles winners: Katarzyna Piter/Kristina Mladenovic).
In World Team Tennis, the Washington Kastles historic 34-match win-streak was snapped by the Texas Wild. Currently the Kastles hold first place in the Eastern Conference, while the Springfield Lasers and the Texas Wild share first in the West, both at (4-2) on the season.
However, the biggest headline in tennis over the past week had nothing to with the Hall of Fame, rain in Rhode Island, an historic win-streak, the post-Wimbledon European clay swing, or Andy Murray watching a live stream of the Lasers/Kastles match. The biggest headline came from Maria Sharapova, who announced last week that she was hiring Jimmy Connors as her full-time coach.
THIS WEEK: World Team Tennis continues here in the United States, there’s an ATP-500 event on clay in Hamburg (Roger Federer), an ATP-250 event on hard-court in Bogota, Columbia, and two WTA International-level clay events in Bastad, Sweden (Serena Williams) and Bad Gastein, Austria.
