I spent a good portion of last week on tennis courts on major Slovak tennis events. The Slovak Open is often labeled as small Grand Slam, since both men and women play their tournament on the same week and in the same facility – The National Tennis Center. In 2007 the men’sĀ tournament in Bratislava won the award for best hosted event on ATP Challenger series circuit. We Slovaks were delighted to see our own Lukas Lacko to win both singles and doubles competition. Due to the bad economy, the women’s ITF series event has lower prize money and it’s not as attractive for top players as it used to be, but the players who entered still provided some decent matches. The first seeded Lesia Tsurenko of Ukraine claimed the title.
Photos from singles semifinals and doubles finals (Saturday): http://hutera.blog.sme.sk/c/281076/Slovak-Open-2011-Sobota.html
Photos from singles finals (Sunday): http://hutera.blog.sme.sk/c/281167/Slovak-Open-2011-Finale.html
The biggest tennis event of the season was scheduled on monday. The fourth annual Tennis Classic had the most special guest – current World no. 1 (as of November 21st) of women’s singles ranking – Caroline Wozniacki, who played a singles match against the Slovak no. 1 Dominika Cibulkova. With no points at stake, both players concentrated on providing as much fun and laughter as possible. Especially Caroline was a riot! Girls were later joined by the famous tennis entertainers Henri Leconte and Mansour Bahrami for a crazy mixed doubles match.
Photos from Tennis Classic 2011: http://hutera.blog.sme.sk/c/281351/Tennis-Classic-2011.html