You haven't seen him at the top for a while but Bernie Bennett is always lurking when it comes to men's tennis in the NWT.
Bennett added to his burgeoning and impressive list of titles on Sunday as he claimed victory in the men's singles final of the Yellowknife Open at the Yellowknife Tennis Club. He beat John St. Louis in straight sets, 6-2, 6-1 for the crown, his 38th career singles win in the NWT.
This was the fourth time Bennett had played St. Louis in singles, the second final they've contested, and Bennett said he knew he would be in a battle.
“John had taken me to three sets in one of those (previous) matches so I have great respect for the level of play that he is capable of producing,” he said. “He has vicious topspin off both his forehand and backhand, enabling him to create angles that are difficult to return. John also has a very hard and accurate first serve, which in this match he got a very high percentage in.”
Bennett's strategy going into the final was to try and keep St. Louis deep in the backcourt and try to lessen the severity of St. Louis's ground strokes.
“I wanted to use a strength of my game – my lob – whenever John approached the net so that he would have to continually run quickly to the back of the court,” he said. “I also realized that many of the games between John and I would probably end up at 30-all or deuce and I wanted to play those important points at a very high level.”
It seemed to work and Bennett said he executed his game plan very well.
Bennett started out by beating Jim Umpherson, his opponent in last year's men's singles final, 6-0, 6-1, in a match Bennett described as both dangerous and challenging. His second round win came against Nisarg Bhatt and even though it was what's known as the dreaded double-bagel defeat for Bhatt – Bennett winning 6-0, 6-0 – Bennett said there were plenty of long and tough rallies.
Ian MacNiven was Bennett's opponent in the semifinal, which ended in favour of Bennett, 6-1, 6-0.
Bennett said MacNiven will be a force to be reckoned with in the future.
If you kept count, Bennett dropped just five games over the course of his four matches and said his consistency is what got him over the line.
“Given the quality of my opponents, I am very pleased with the consistency that I was able to play at,” he said. “I was really motivated to win this tournament (after) I had come second at the recently completed Fort Smith Open.”
In other action, Tami Johnson teamed up with Leo Jourard, the tennis club's head professional, to win the mixed doubles over the team of Nikola and Tamara Jovic while Elizabeth duPlessis and Tina Hendrickson captured the women's doubles title.
Nikola Jovic and Jorard teamed up to win the men's doubles while the women's singles title was won by Anna Coles as she beat Roza Balasanyan in what Johnson, the tennis club's general manager, called an extremely entertaining match.
“It was fast, lots of good rallies and really great shots,” she said.
Overall, Johnson said it was nice to get everything in over the course of one weekend and not have to fight the weather, as was the case in the Season Opener last month.
“We got everything played, including the consolation rounds,” she said. “No scheduling nightmares like we had last time and it was such a fun weekend.”