The week before school started it was time for the Winston-Salem Open!
It's a men's professional tennis tournament on the ATP tour. They had a lot of big names coming this year and we made the most of it!
First up was Mom/Boy's day at the Open!
There are several of us from our swim and tennis club that have sons around the same age and also play, so we all decided to go together!
The kids were off on their own a lot, but we saw them every now and then.
The boys enjoyed all the fun games including clocking their serve, knocking down big tennis balls, and even a little basketball.
We ran into our favorite grounds keeper from Ridgewood who was there volunteering.
While a lot of the bigger names weren't playing that day, we did get to see them on the practice court.
Cressy and Thiem practicing.
We watched the Gasquet/Majchrazk match.
The boys bounced around a lot.
And ate a lot of food.
It was a great day of tennis to kick off the week!
On Wednesday I took four boys to the middle school play day at the Open.
The kids got to do a free tennis clinic, free tickets to the day session, and a free meal.
It was a great deal!
They had so much fun at the clinic.
And they even had a former WFU tennis player, who played in the tournament but lost early, come and hit with the boys. His name is Skander Mansouri.
We had a little down time before the gates opened for the afternoon session so the boys hung out on their devices.
But eventually we got to see some good tennis! We saw Fognini, Mannerino, and Steve Johnson.
The boys had a great day! And thanks to Uncle Donovan watching the twins, I got to enjoy it as well!
Our last night at the Open was date night!
We had plans to attend with the Navarros, but COVID was running through their family and unfortunately Jess couldn't make it.
Luckily Kevin and his son Dylan joined us in her place.
The doubles finals was supposed to be up first, but rain delays made them push it back a day.
We got to see the two semifinal matches; Mannarino v. van de Zanschulp. Mannarino won pretty easily. It was kind of a boring match. But the next semifinal was much more entertaining! It was Djere v. Huesler. They had a much closer match with some amazing points! In the end Djere advanced but Mannarino took it all!
We were lucky enough that they allowed ticket holders to come back the next day for just the doubles final. I let Finley and David go and they took Dylan with them as well.
They really enjoyed getting to watch some doubles and some of their strategies.
It was a great week at the Winston-Salem Open!
We can't wait to do it again next year!
We are so lucky we get to see some professional tennis up close and personal!
