It has long been a legitimate subject of discussion amongst tennis fans and commentators that there are certain tournaments whose existence on the ATP calendar feels less and less tenable. Considering the relative lack of quality and entertainment in evidence on the grass courts of Newport, Rhode Island–officially billed as the Hall of Fame Open–as well as its location and timing in the calendar, it may not come as much of a surprise that after almost half a century, the tour’s only grass event held outside of Europe will next year be newly positioned in the “former” category, alongside those in Estoril, Lyon, Atlanta, and Cordoba.
The Past and Future of ATP Newport
Timing switch
Unlike those other tournaments however, Newport’s future is assured: the 2025 edition will be a 125–the second highest Challenger tier–staged during the second week of Wimbledon, and will likely appeal to those who fell in the opening week, as well as the 100+ qualifying entrants who could not advance to the main draw at SW19. Nonetheless, even taking into account the nomadic existence of a tennis professional, it remains to be seen whether a Challenger player bereft of substantial career earnings would willingly subject themselves to a 3,000-mile journey to the United States, with unknown likelihood of ending the week suitably fulfilled and remunerated.
Servers’ paradise
Comparisons may ultimately be drawn with the Nottingham Open–a highly anticipated part of the grass season in the 1990s and 2000s, long since relegated to the status of “just another Challenger” after experiencing the same demotion in 2016. Former British #1 Greg Rusedski collected a third of his career title haul at those events, and is emblematic of how Newport has, for the most part, delivered the predictable on repeat. In precisely half of its 24 editions since the millennium, a (usually big-serving) American has made an apparently calculated surge through the rounds, winning service games with the monotonous regularity of a heartbeat before lifting the trophy on Sunday evening–from Taylor Dent to Maxime Cressy, Steve Johnson to four-time champion John Isner.
Rankings insight
Aside from the locals, men long acknowledged as hugely proficient on grass have claimed the title–the likes of Ivo Karlovic and Adrian Mannarino spring to mind, as does that unique specimen of the tennis breed Fabrice Santoro. Certain “doubles specialists” would count victory at Newport among their finer moments in singles (Nicolas Mahut and Leander Paes once, Rajeev Ram twice) and there are no shortage of past runners-up who can also be branded with such shorthand vernacular (Justin Gimelstob, Matthew Ebden). Whilst there have been patterns in terms of players losing the final, repeating the feat a year later then going one better the following year–Hewitt in 2012-14, Karlovic in 2014-16–it is also noticeable that in half of those two dozen post-millennium finals, at least one finalist was ranked outside the Top 100 at the start of the week; winners had a mean starting position of #78, with the defeated finalists sitting at #106 on average.
Turning to the present, it is fitting that Marcos Giron’s maiden visit to the Rhode Island courts culminated so gloriously with his debut ATP title and thus first Top 40 appearance, a decade after becoming national collegiate champion. As with Jan-Lennard Struff earlier in the year, the likeable Californian won the tournament having lost multiple Tour finals, and did so in front of a home crowd a few days before his birthday. 2024’s tenth first-time champion was this time not found wanting in the clutch performance stakes, producing an ace to eradicate championship point for his opponent Alex Michelsen–the ATP’s highest ranked teenager–in back-to-back Newport finals, before edging the deciding set 7-5, to render the event’s tour swansong an “I was there” occasion.
Main Photo Credit: Louis Walker III-The Providence Journal/USAToday Sports
