Tennis Atlantic

Charlottesville, Virginia—Attendance is up at the annual Jonathan Fried Pro Challenger at the Boar’s Head resort in Central Virginia this week. There are two big reasons: Benoit Paire and Reilly Opelka.

I came down to check out the big American yesterday, who was scheduled to play the night session match. The only glimpse I got of Opelka was from behind, walking slowly toward the exits wearing flip flops and socks and carrying his own bag of dirty laundry. At the time, I didn’t realize it was the last I would see of him, but sure enough, he had withdrawn from the tournament moments earlier. Communications with tournament staff are slower at smaller pro events like this one. It’s all word of mouth. His opponent, Aidan Mayo, advances to today’s quarterfinal match against Alexander Ritschard.

Like Mayo, Benoit Paire was the beneficiary of a walkover when German player Lucas Gerch departed with an injury yesterday afternoon.

The seeds fall so hard in these Challengers that sometimes I don’t even know why they bother to put numbers next to names. The only seed remaining is Paire at #3. Two qualifiers, Quinn and Aidan Mayo, remain in the hunt as well.

Quinn provided a stark reminder to fellow American Emilio Nava that you have to play the matches. Nava bested Quinn 6-1, 6-2 in Stanford earlier this year. Quinn was happy to return the favor with a 6-3, 6-1 result on the indoor hardcourts in Charlottesville on Thursday. “Emilio is unbelievable. He actually waxed me earlier this summer and it made me really question my decision to turn pro, so to get this win today is more important than anything that might happen in the future,” he said regarding the Australian Open Wild Card challenge.

One RIP I mourn is the disappearance of human courtside camera operators at Challenger-level events. In prior years, two people had jobs covering both sides of the show court, but like everyone else, it turns out they were replaceable. I enjoyed their smooth handiwork and these bots have no personalities. Perhaps it was a good thing yesterday that humans didn’t have to cover every point as top seed Michael Mmoh was not having his best tennis day in front of the bots, losing to Alexander Ritschard, 6-3, 7-6(5) in front of a crowd who overwhelmingly appreciated his opponent’s University of Virginia credentials. It was like a home match for the Swiss player and an away match for Mmoh, who spent considerable time growing up in the DC area just two hours away.

Kazakhstan’s Beibit Zhukayev was a slight underdog to Inaki Montes-De La Torre of Spain yesterday. Zhukayev dismissed the impressive qualifier, 6-3, 7-6(8), and he will square off against Croatia’s Nino Serdarusic later today after Patrick Kypson and Brandon Holt kick things off with an All-American quarterfinal at noon.