Serve and Volley Specialist Rajeev Ram Serves Up Second ATP Newport Title
Steen Kirby, Tennis Atlantic

After an exciting week of wacky results in Newport the serve and volley specialist Rajeev Ram prevailed in the final over the veteran Ivo Karlovic, who brought his own massive serve to the match. Ram, who boosted himself into the top 90 with the title victory, is the lowest ranked ATP World Tour champion this year after his 7-6(5) 5-7 7-6(2) win. Ram had to save three match points this week but Karlovic couldn’t generate any of those today. He narrowly lost the first set tiebreak, got a break in the second set, but played a poor third set tiebreak that doomed him to defeat.

Just like last year, Karlovic finishes as a finalist in Newport, while Ram took his second title in Rhode Island. He’s primarily a serve and volley doubles specialist, and a challenger tour level player, but he brought his ATP game to play this week, and much credit to the veteran Indian-American.

In the doubles final Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi and Johnny Marray slipped past Nick Monroe/Mate Pavic 10-8 in a third set super tiebreak.