The Hall of Fame Tennis Championships has a lot going for it, as you might expect from a tournament for which the final “tune-up” is Wimbledon.
Regrettably, “a lot” doesn’t include having Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, or Andy Murray in the draw—there’s a price to be paid for following Wimbledon; it’s kind of like some promoter screwing up and making the Beatles the opening act for Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band. But that only adds to the charm of this hardy little survivor of what might be called the growth of the game.
How can you not love a tournament that for some years was sponsored by Campbell’s soup, that ubiquitous pre-requisite for American life? Did you really think it was tofu and bean sprouts that enabled two-time defending champion John Isner to grow to 6’9” and hit atomic serves?
Which reminds me—if you’re looking to kill a few hours on Sunday, try tuning into the final in the event that semifinalists Isner and Nicolas Mahut end up winning their matches today over, respectively, Lleyton Hewitt and Michael Russell.
70-68; I’ll say no more. (Except that there is a final-set tiebreaker at Newport.)
The Hall of Fame Tennis Championships is justly regarded as existing in a time-warp, and that will probably remain true even when it ends up swapping places on the calendar with Wimbledon two years hence. In doing so, what passes for a “grass-court season” will be expanded by a week starting in 2015, which is a welcome change. In reality, no new week is added, but pushing Wimbledon back will create that impression, because it will give the players an extra week of rest after the French Open, enable Newport to serve a more valuable function as a warm-up for the main event, and probably persuade the top players to enter at least one grass-court tournament (something neither Djokovic nor Rafael Nadal did this year).
That’s great news, particularly for those who reveled in the way the true differences between tennis on grass and every other surface was manifest at Wimbledon this year. But if you’re thinking you’ll see Federer or Murray scrambling around on Newport’s lawns for the first time in their careers, forget about it. They’ll almost surely stay in Europe, and leave Newport to the crafty Europeans who like the idea of taking a spot in a Roger, Andy, Nole, and Rafa-free draw—and, of course, the Americans.
That’s one of the other things that help make Newport the Magical Mystery Tournament; it’s the event that can take beleaguered U.S. fans back in time, back to the era when Americans sprouted in every draw like mushrooms in damp grass, and when they could still win titles all over the place. Newport still reminds us of the good old days, and now I’m going back to the era of Jimmy Connors, Stan Smith, Brian Gottfried, Roscoe Tanner, Dick Stockton, Eric van Dillen, and others—all of them accomplished and generally delightful grass-court players.