Two Days in Winnetka — Pics and Thoughts from the 2014 Nielsen Pro Tennis Championship

Having a buddy on court often brings out the more cheerful side of tennis players, and the Kudla/Kokkinakis duo was definitely having a good time in the final. There was big hitting and big smiles, and the two blitzed through the first set, winning it 6-2 over the all-American duo, Evan King and Raymond Sarmiento.

King and Sarmiento stepped up their game in the second set, landing more booming serves and finessing some great shots to keep their opponents on their toes. The young duo got laughs in the post-match interview for answering that they *had* played a lot of matches together…just not for five years. Seems they remembered their teenaged synchronicity, and balanced their strengths pretty well on the court.

We’d been interested in seeing Thanasi Kokkinakis, the promising teenage Australian who’d managed to win a respectable six games off of Rafael Nadal at the Australian Open this year. (His buddy Nick Kyrgios did a lot more damage to the Spaniard at Wimby, but that’s for another story.)

The first shocker was the Aussie’s trademark hair…or rather, the lack of it.

The second impression was that, with his more upright posture when playing and his genial, freewheeling style on court, he reminded us a bit of Benoit Paire.

Despite that aura of Benoit, it appears that Thanasi has more of that Aussie style of cray-cray than the French kind:

But back to the finals: the Kudla/Kokkinakis duo hung tough and snuck out the victory in the second set TB, winning the match 6-2, 7-6 (4). Kudla, King, and Sarmiento have played a lot of tennis together over the years, and the heartfelt congratulations at the net were pretty awesome.

Two days in Winnetka, some great tennis, and a whole hell of a lot of photos. Hope you enjoyed this peek into a challenger event, and feel inspired to check one out for yourself soon.

You can actually see another of my photos from the Winnetka singles final in this much more succinct tournament recap from Last Word on Sports.

Also, gotta give a shout-out to the ball kids. Challengers often have a, shall we say, eclectic and interesting array of volunteers doing ball kid duties. But Winnetka had a well-trained team of kids that kept things running smoothly, with lots of enthusiasm.