by James Zug
Last week Newport hosted the twenty-first Ladies World Championships. Founded in 1985, the championships celebrate tennis excellence in the women’s game.
It was a perfect week in Newport. It was the third time Newport had hosted the championships, after 1995 and 2009. There were packed galleries and a buzzing, warm, festive atmosphere: right before the coin toss for the singles challenge match, the relative silence was interrupted by the concussive pop of a champagne cork from the clerestory gallery. Much like the biannual open singles world championship, many people had flown in from the other three playing nations for the women’s iteration to watch and see each other. Indeed, in the crowd were two of the four other women world singles champions, Penny Lumley and Charlotte Cornwallis, who had remarkably captured all but one of the singles titles since 1987.
Both the International Tennis Hall of Fame and Jonathan & Bettie Pardee hosted splendid cocktail parties, and the championship dinner was held at Midtown Oyster Bar on Thames Street in downtown Newport. A handicap doubles tournament attracted dozens of men and women, including most of the women playing in the championships as well as some legends like Karen Toates.
The weather in Rhode Island varied greatly over the week, with some heavy spring rains, chill, glorious sunshine and then on the day of the singles challenge, a lovely fog crept in on little cat feet covering the harbor and town.
If you could see through the fog, you glimpsed inarguably the greatest female tennis player ever. Claire Vigrass Fahey was going for her eighth titles in both the singles and doubles. Fahey turns thirty-four later this month. Playing off a 6.8 handicap in Newport, Fahey had a decade earlier reached a 2.4; either number is the strongest handicap for a woman since the system was computerized a quarter century ago. The Englishwoman has captured forty-three Open ladies singles titles, including eleven ladies U.S. Opens and completed six calendar Grand Slams. She is ranked twenty-fifth in the world, perhaps the only woman in any international sport to claim that high a ranking.
In the singles World Championships Fahey lost in the second round in 2007 and couldn’t play in 2009 because she had her A-Level exams, but since then she has entered and won the championships every time. It was the third time her challenger was Lea Van Der Zwalmen, the Belgian wunderkind. The previous two championship finals, the Van Der Zwalmen had captured just two games in a best of three set match. This year in Newport, the singles had a new format, with a challenge structure and a best of five sets match. Both could have potentially helped Van Der Zwalmen if she had been able to push it to a fourth or even fifth set.
Alas, she only could manage to take two games this time as well, the first two of the second set. Van Der Zwalmen got a chase on her first touch of the ball at the start of the match, struck a brilliant behind the back shot at another moment (showing off her hand-eye coordination that has led her to capturing five world racquets singles titles) and three times she was able to get a chase-off call off tough chases. Amidst cries of “allez, allez!” from her French-speaking supporters, she put in a hard fight.
Nonetheless, Fahey was imperious, winning 6-0, 6-2, 6-0 in a match marked by Tony Hoolins. Fahey served better, returned better, found more openings and ended points with emphasis. The match took just over an hour and a half. Her two children, Sophie and Freddie, dutifully watched from seats near hazard the door, except during the second set when they engaged in a spirited game of tag in the hallway behind the main wall. Her husband, Rob Fahey, cheered loudly. He captured thirteen world singles titles, the last at age forty-nine. If she continues at this rate, Claire Fahey will have the chance to better his record in 2037 when she’d be a youthful forty-five.
In the doubles, played concurrently, Fahey captured her eighth title, with her third different partner. Fahey & Tara Lumley had won the last two times, as well as six Open doubles titles for a career Grand Slam together. Just like with the singles, the finals of the doubles was now a best of five match. Fahey & Lumley took the title 6-2, 6-4, 6-3 in just under two hours over Margaux Randjbar & Van Der Zwalmen in a match marked by Josh Smith.
At 4-0 in the second set, it looked all but finished. Then Randjbar & Van Der Zwalmen went on a hot streak, and suddenly at 4-all the match looked in the balance. In response Fahey & Lumley took the next three games at love, setting aside all doubt about who might win. Highlights included Fahey blasting a straight force that Randjbar couldn’t handle to beat a chase of worse than a yard and a low backhand volley to the base of the tambour by Lumley.
The tournament was wonderfully streamed by Ryan Carey, enabling hundreds of fans around the world the chance to see the women’s game at its very highest.
Stay tuned! – More Photos will be posted shortly.
