{"id":2464,"date":"2013-07-19T22:54:30","date_gmt":"2013-07-19T22:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/?p=2464"},"modified":"2015-09-20T02:06:24","modified_gmt":"2015-09-20T06:06:24","slug":"newport-nicolas-mahut-doubles-up-on-the-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/blogs\/tennis-international-access\/newport-nicolas-mahut-doubles-up-on-the-green\/","title":{"rendered":"“Newport: Nicolas Mahut Doubles Up on the Grass” (From: Eurosport.fr)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nicolas Mahut won twice on Sunday to raise the trophy at Newport. \u00a0He notched his second title of the season, and of his career. \u00a0Both came on grass.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nicolas Mahut had a particularly charged and fruitful [last] Sunday at Newport. \u00a0A victim of the weather on Saturday, the American tournament had to shut its doors and resort to playing the semi-finals and finals both on Sunday. \u00a0After having settled up with American Michael Russell 6-2, 6-2 in the morning, the Frenchman finished the job by beating Australian Lleyton Hewitt, the 2012 finalist, 5-7, 7-5, 6-3. \u00a0Three weeks after s-Hertogenbosch, the world #127 then honored his wildcard invitation to Rhode Island by grabbing a second career title, again on the green lawns. \u00a0He’s the second French player to win the ATP 250 tournament, after Fabrice Santoro did it in 2007 and 2008. \u00a0In a little wink at history, he [Mahut] was the unhappy finalist in 2007.<\/p>\n

The final was rich in drama. \u00a0Hewitt, who proved to be the more solid in the important moments to grab the first set, served for the match at 5-4 in the second, but the Frenchman broke back, then won two more games in a row to make it a set apiece. \u00a0Breaking again at 3-1 in the final set, Mahut quickly evened it to 3-3, causing the former world #1 to throw his racquet in frustration. \u00a0In the end, Mahut won 5 games at a trot to turn the match definitively in his favor.<\/p>\n

Thanks to his recent newfound success, gained here after a 2-hour 19-minute battle, the 31-year-old from Angers will go up fifty places in the rankings, which will get him into the main draw of the upcoming US Open (26 August – 9 September.) \u00a0“When you get to a final, anything can happen; I still can’t believe it,” exclaimed Mahut. \u00a0“A month ago, I was playing to get to the qualifying rounds at the US Open. \u00a0I was 240th in the world with few points to defend. \u00a0I knew I’d have to play well on grass to get there, and one month later, I have two titles in my pocket.”<\/p>\n

On the evening that he lost the doubles final at Roland Garros with [partner] Michael Llodra, Mahut regretted that all the big moments in his career ended in defeat. \u00a0Not anymore.<\/p>\n

[divider]<\/p>\n

Click here to discuss Nicolas Mahut’s Excellent Adventure with fellow tennis fans in our discussion forum.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

[divider]<\/p>\n

Translated from:\u00a0“Newport : Nicolas Mahut double la mise sur tapis vert” (www.eurosport.fr, July 14, 2013)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nicolas Mahut won twice on Sunday to raise the trophy at Newport. \u00a0He notched his second title of the season, and of his career. \u00a0Both came on grass. Nicolas Mahut had a particularly charged and fruitful [last] Sunday at Newport. \u00a0A victim of the weather on Saturday, the American tournament had to shut its doors […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2458,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[252,149,261],"class_list":["post-2464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tennis-international-access","tag-hall-of-fame-championships","tag-lleyton-hewitt","tag-nicolas-mahut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennisfrontier.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}