Let no void go unfilled: This is the mantra of the pro-tennis scheduler. For the top players, late July is a much-needed rest period between surfaces and seasons; they have nearly a month off between the end of the grass swing at Wimbledon, and the start of the first major U.S. hard-court event, the Rogers Cup, in Canada in August. But while the stars can afford the time off—Novak Djokovic showed up this weekend at the tournament in Umag just to watch—the rest of the tour doesn’t have much time for vacation. Call this a Summer Interlude, rather than a full-fledged season of its own.
This interlude doesn’t lead into a Grand Slam, and it isn’t played on a specific surface or continent; there are tournaments on clay, grass, and hard courts, and they’re held in South America, North America, Europe, and Asia. The winners often come out of left field: On Sunday, 26-year-old Benoit Paire won his first career ATP tournament, in Bastad, while Bernard Tomic defended his title in Bogota a few days after being arrested in Miami.
Despite its laid-back name and lack of long-term import, the summer interlude is filled with action. Or at least it is filled with results; there are six ATP and WTA events being held on what should qualify as a slow week for the sport. Within that onslaught of scores, a few should catch the eyes of fans who are looking ahead to the bigger late-summer stories to come.