The 2024 US Open Racquets was the second US Open hosted by the RCOP, but all the members rose admirably to the challenge once again.
Play started on Tuesday with a match between a legend of both the club and the game, Richard Tanfield, and one of the youngest pros on tour, Eli Segal. Despite being so early in the tournament, a healthy crowd turned out to support the event which was played in great spirit, a theme that would continue throughout the tournament.
The rest of the singles qualifier matches took place on Wednesday, and all matches were tightly contested. There were two notably close matches between Tom Price and Andrew Dick, and Myles Holland and George Gardiner that went to the final game in the final round to qualify to the main draw. Both Tom and George managed to come from behind, supported by the Philadelphia crowd, to qualify against two very tough competitors.
Play continued on Thursday with the first round of the singles and the doubles qualifiers. It was the first chance for a lot of the title contenders to get on court and they all put on impressive displays of how Racquets is played at the very top level. The Percy Cup was in Philadelphia for the weekend and plenty of tennis players ended up spending more time in the racquets gallery than anywhere else.
The quarter finals were played on Friday in front of an ever-growing crowd. The highlight contest of the day took place between school rivals James Rossiter and Tarquin Sotir with their partners Julius Manton-Jones and Dan Fisher respectively. Tarquin and Dan came out of the gates hot, comfortably winning the first game. However, James and Julius soon found their groove and after a tense second game, proceeded to win 3-1 in a match with very few errors and a lot of high-quality winners.
Two RCOP members faced off in the headline semi-final contest. Freddie Bristowe and Will Hopton would have been the final of the Western Open a week earlier in New York but Will picked up an injury so could not play. Luckily, he had recovered enough to put on a nail-biting match where two of the three games went to sets. In the third and final game, however, Freddie managed to save game ball to win the match and prevent what would’ve been a nervous last two games against the endlessly fit Hopton.
The gallery upstairs and downstairs was full for our finals day on Sunday. The play was going to be so exciting that Julius Manton-Jones rose from his deathbed to come and support the event. World Champion Ben Cawston faced world number two Freddie Bristowe and the first game lived up to expectations with Freddie clinching it 16/15. Ben then dug deep and combined some exceptional golf-swinging power with some great touch, hitting drop shots from deep in the court to push through his back injury and with his fourth US open title in a row.
In his third US open final in two weeks, John Lumley showed all his sporting class as he came out swinging in the first game of the doubles final. Puring some scarcely believable gets against the world class Cawston and Hopton, Lumley and Bristowe managed to steal the first game 15/12 having been 1/9 down. The quality of the hitting was of the highest caliber seen anywhere this season. However, a game down, Cawston and Hopton fired up and used their greater racquets experience to take control of the match and ended up pushing themselves to a comfortable 3-1 victory in their first tournament as a pair, an ominous sign for the rest of the top players.
The tournament was a huge success that would not have been possible without all the patrons and sponsors of the American racquets community. Special thanks must go to the RCOP members and the pro shop, led by Rob Whitehouse, for organizing and hosting three tournaments in two weeks and who all hope to visit future US opens.
