Winston Salem Tennis Tournament 2022

I absolutely love our special tradition of "Mama and Mark" of going to Winston Salem Open in August each year. Once I let Robert take Mark to this tournament but that was the last time-hahaha, I like it too much. 

Mark and I arrived quite early in the day to Winston Salem so we could see a few pro players practice before their matches. We saw Maxim Cressy and his entourage but didn't get the courage to approach him. 

He played Mannarino in the afternoon match. We got amazing seats, right behind where the players serve, so we could see all the details. We are fans of his serve and volley type of game, but this time it didn't serve him well and so he lost. 

So we tried to catch Mannarino after the match but again Mark was too shy. 

After a visiting a few promotional tents and Mark hitting super fast serves as part of the grounds entertainment, we made our way to the USTA event as it was the day that was USTA members appreciation day. 

Mark is a USTA member for free because all junior players are, but I am not since my ACL injury. Nevertheless, they still invited us to join the appetizer dinner (which was MORE than enough for us). It was actually pretty neat and yummy! And people got to win a ton of raffle prizes. 

After dinner, we headed back to the courts. It was a lot more crowded for the evening matches. 

Mark and the traditional picture with the Winston Salem mascot. He is just getting taller and taller than that ball. 

So we got to see B. Van de Zandschulp from Netherlands beat Bonzi from France in a tight match. And then L. Dere beat Gasquet in a three setter. It was thrilling to watch. 

Also! During the changeover or between the sets, they announced a competition, and that the winner would get a big tennis ball with autographs. You know where this is going....hahaha. They asked a question, "Who's played the most matches at Winston Salem Open?". And we were supposed to tweet the answer. Miraculously, I actually had Twitter on my phone and Mark knew the answer (Steve Johnson), so we quickly answered. Hilariously, only two people replied to that question and only ours was correct! So we (Mark) won the prize!!! 

That's the ball with autographs from a few famous pro players in the tournament. 

Lucky!!! 

Evening matches are always fun! 

It was getting late though, so we started to watch Jack Draper's match against Swiss player Huesler and had to leave before it was finished. We still had an 1.5 hour drive ahead of us, so we didn't want to stay pass 10:30 pm. Sadly, Draper lost as well. 

It's so great to have an opportunity to drive to a pro tournament each year. I really hope we can go to more of them in the future as we all enjoy watching them very much. In fact, my bucket list includes going to all four Grand Slams someday. We got one down, and Mark is hoping to go to the Australian Open for his graduation trip in 2027 (that's a big dream)... now just need to figure out ways to get to the rest. 

Lyana.