The week-long, Winston-Salem Open professional tennis tournament concludes with the final round on Saturday. It's broadcast on television in more than 100 countries, and generates approximately $4 million dollars for the city.
Now in its sixth year, the tournament continues to draw top tennis players from around the world, and fans from across the state that flock to the Wake Forest University tennis center to watch them compete. According to Tournament Director Bill Oakes, attendance figures are up slightly across the board from last year. And that's good news, especially given the scorching daytime temperatures that began mid-week, and some surprising tournament results thus far.
Nearly all of the most recognizable names in the field of players—including last year's winner Kevin Anderson, and Americans Sam Querry, and Steve Johnson –were eliminated early on by players ranked below them.
Top seeded Frenchman, World Number 15 Richard Gasquet was sent home in the quarter final by Australian John Millman who is ranked number 81. But that's pretty much par for the course, according to Oakes.
"One of the great things about tennis and the level of competition we have here is all the players are ranked in the top 100 in the world. So when you look at how the slight difference that exists between somebody who's ranked 20th in the world and somebody who's ranked 90th in the world, yeah, I guess technically it's an upset, but think about the fact that we're talking about the best players on the entire planet".
The finals of the Winston-Salem Open will take place on Saturday afternoon, not before 2:00PM.