An all-American final decided the winner of this year’s Hall of Fame Open in Newport.
Second seed Marcos Giron served 13 aces to zero in his defeat of No. 3 seed Alex Michelsen, 6-7(4) 6-3 7-5.
For many years, Giron didn’t play on grass. After only a few matches in 2011, he played eight matches in 2019, winning five. On German grass in 2021, he made the final of Stuttgart and at the Terra Wortmann Open in Halle he reached the quarters – the latter result he achieved again this year.
During the 2024 Hall of Fame Open it was announced that from next year, the tournament would no longer be an ATP 250 and would transform to a joint ATP Challenger 125 and WTA 125 level event.
From 1976 to 1989, the Hall of Fame Open was part of the Grand Prix tennis circuit, a predecessor of the current ATP Tour. The event was then absorbed into the ATP Tour from 1990-2024.
Over the years the tournament has been won by some top players.
American John Isner’s massive serve helped him to four singles titles, the most for any player, followed by India’s Vijay Armitraj and Greg Rusedski with three titles each. Rusedski won his first as a Canadian and the other two after switching allegiances to Great Britain.
Brian Teacher won over Stan Smith in 1979, a year before winning his Australian Open title on the grass of Melbourne’s Kooyong Tennis Club. In 1981, Johan Kriek defeated Hank Pfister to win the Hall of Fame Open a few months before winning the first of his two Australian Open championships.
Lleyton Hewitt finally won the title in 2014 in his third consecutive final, defeating Ivo Karlović 6-3 6-7(4) 7-6(3). A three-time grand slam winner – two singles, one men’s doubles – Hewitt returned to Newport in 2022 to be inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame; the ceremony delayed a year by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The new joint event at the venue will run during the second week of Wimbledon, instead of the Hall of Fame Open’s slot of the week afterwards.
The induction ceremony for the International Tennis Hall of Fame will remain in Newport but now take place separately from the tennis event, moving to August.