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Infosys Hall of Fame Open 2024 – A Week of Tennis, Indian Celebrations, and a Farewell

Florian Buechting Sports Blogging No Comments

A very special week lies ahead of me. On Saturday, I will fly over to Boston and drive on to Rhode Island. I am excited to share a week full of tennis with you. The Infosys Hall of Fame Open are a very special tournament in the ATP Tour calendar – and I am glad to be able to take you there for the whole week. It is a time of farewell as well as a time for big celebration to me. Here is the preview of my coverage of the tournament.

 

The ATP Tour Coverage from Newport is done in collaboration with

In this tournament, there will be majorly individual reports on Flyctory.com. However, I might make use of some of the match reports posted in there, however. The induction ceremony will be in close collaboration with Indian Tennis Daily then.

 

Farewell To An ATP Legend

It will be the third time I am in Newport for the tournament held at the legendary Tennis Hall of Fame grounds. I already took you there during my last visit in 2019. The tournament is traditionally the only ATP tournament on grass held after Wimbledon. Unfortunately, the tournament in that format will be held for the last time. The Hall of Fame management will make use of significantly improving and modernizing the museum and making the grounds ready for new kinds of tennis entertainment.

To me, this will really be a sad farewell. Not only that the somehow more traditional, maybe a bit of outdated style of the tennis grounds is a special. I always loved to be there. Newport is special – even though in recent years, it was not too easy to attract top players to go there. They rather stay in Europe, preparing for the clay season towards the French Open. This year, most of them will aim to play at the Paris Olympics, so that a transatlantic trip for a week might not be feasible. The tournament is also the place where my idol Leander Paes won his only ATP Singles title. His victory against South African Neville Goodville on 6th July 1998 will always be a special memory of my life. I am sure many tennis fans, who tend being on the traditional side (ain’t Wimbledon a part of “traditional tennis” as well?).

 

Players Expected

As said, the schedule for the Newport Farewell 2024 is a bit of unfortunate for the organizers. Nonetheless, there are some very interesting players in the entry list, headed by Adrian Mannarino (France, ATP Singles #24) and Jordan Thompson (Australia, #40). Under the circumstances, a main draw cut (I wrote this post a few days before publication) around ATP rank 100 is definitely not too bad. In the past, there have always been some Indian tennis players, at least in the singles qualification – but so far, this does not seem being the case.

The doubles event comes with two Indian teams, Rithvik Choudary Bollipalli / Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha and Anirudh Chandrasekar / Arjun Kadhe. I just ran into Arjun before and look forward to it. I am hoping that Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan / Vijay Sundar Prashanth also make it, so that there are three Indian pairings in Rhode Island. The doubles field is lead by Nathaniel Lammons and Jackson Withrow (USA).

 

Introduction of True ATP Legends

Regardless of what is going on on court, the second weekend of the tournament will be one of the most special moments of my life. When I have been to the Infosys Hall of Fame grounds, the last time, I gave a promise that I will be there when the dream of a legend, an idol and a friend will become true. This will be happening on Saturday, 20th July 2024. The Indian tennis her crowns his career being introduced as the first Indian as a player to the International Tennis Hall of Fame. However, for me and Indian Tennis Daily – the community I will be representing in the United States – there is even more reason to celebrate. There are two Indian inductees in the class of 2024. Let me introduce the Class of 2024 to you.

 

Richard Evans

Richard Robert Ingham Evans is a 1939-born British journalist. He has been working on other sports as well, but is majorly associated with tennis. Covering his first Wimbledon tournament as a journalist in 1960, he has written 23 books. These include tennis biographies, like the one of John McEnroe. Some other publications of him are a book about the 100th anniversary of the Davis Cup (in 1998) or The History of Tennis: Legendary Champion. Magical Moments release in 2021. He also worked for the ATP in several role, including being their first press officer (1973). For his work, he already received several awards. He covered more than 200 Grand Slam tournaments as a journalist.

 

Vijay Amritraj

Vijay Amritraj, born on 14th December 1953 in Madras, is a tennis legends in many ways. As a professional player, he was active from 1970 to 1993. His ATP ranking of 18 in 1980 is the highest ranking ever achieved in singles by an Indian tennis player. He reached the quarterfinals in Wimbledon and the US Open twice each, winning a total of 15 titles in singles and 14 in doubles. A majority of these titles have been won partnering his brother Anand.

However, Vijay is inducted to the International Tennis Hall of Fame majorly for his post-sportsman career work. Especially in Asia, he has become a key face of tennis in regards of TV broadcasting and promotion. He played a high role in the ATP tour as well as the WTA having tournaments in India. In 2001, he became the first Indian to serve as United Nations Messenger of Peace. His Vijay Amritraj Foundation also especially supports children and women.

 

Leander Paes

Whenever people ask me why the heck a German is become a passionate fan of Indian tennis, the name Leander Paes is somewhere in the first sentence of the reply. The Indian tennis legend was born on 17th June 1973 in Calcutta as son of former hockey player Vece Paes and basketball player Jennifer Paes. In 1990, he won the Wimbledon Junior title in singles and turned pro the year thereafter.

It is hard for me to list all the incredible performances Leander Adrian Paes has achieved on the tennis court. Quite some of his most legendary matches and tournaments happened while representing his country. I became a Leander fan in 1996. At the Atlanta tournament, the wildcard player Paes beat seeded players Richey Reneberg (USA), Thomas Enqvist (Sweden) and Italian Renzo Furlan (as well as unseeded Nicolas Pereira from Venezuela), advancing to the Olympic semifinals. He lost against later gold medalist Andre Agassi (USA), but beat Brazilian Fernando Meligeni in the Bronze Medal Match, becoming the first Indian since 1952 winning an Olympic medal in an individual sports.

Especially in the 1990’s and 2000’s, his record and performances in Davis Cup were outstanding. The list of players he beat in the team competition includes Henri Leconte, Arnaud Boetsch (both France), Goran Ivanisevic (Croatia), Jiri Novak (Czechia) and more. Also due to a 25-2 record in doubles alongside Mahesh Bhupathi, he is holding the all-time Davis Cup record for doubles wins (45). His Davis Cup career record is 93-35.

He won one ATP title in singles (Newport 1998) and 65 titles in doubles, including eight men’s doubles and ten mixed doubles Grand Slam titles. Two of these titles were alongside Martina Navratilova in 2003, who was 46 years old at that time. In 2016, he won his last Grand Slam title, partnering Martina Hingis (Switzerland) at Roland-Garros. He retired in 2021. I praised Leander in a posting in 2018, due to his 750th match win on the ATP tour.

 

Video material and graphics by the Tennis Hall of Fame

 

Flyctory.com about Indian Tennis

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