After a cancelled edition Stockholm Open finally returned to Kungliga Tennishallen. But even if the tournament happened in normal conditions, with no restrictions, uncertainties about it actually happening or not have haunted us up to weeks before the start date. Luckily, things remained under control and the Royal Tennis Hall could open its doors to the audience and everybody involved.

This year the tournament was moved from October to November because of an overlapping of its regular week with the rescheduled Indian Wells. The chosen week is usually an empty slot between the last tournament of the season and the big finale when the best 8 players in singles and best 8 teams compete in the World Tour Finals. Because of this arrangement, Stockholm Open lost some of its headliners in both singles and doubles. In singles while most were waiting to see Alex Zverev and Casper Ruud, the audience got to see Andy Murray and Jannik Sinner instead. Denis Shapovalov, winner of 2019’s edition remained a constant headliner and, to the delight of everybody, made his way to the final this year again. On the doubles draw, the change of schedule led to two valuable teams heading down to Turin instead of playing Stockholm: Kevin Krawietz/Horia Tecău and Jamie Murray/Bruno Soares qualified for the finals while playing Paris and pulled out of Stockholm. For me this meant that the year’s tournament would not have any Romanian players.

All staff and players started the tournament by getting tested for covid. With a negative test in our pockets we went up to the Player’s Lounge and opened our doors for the first time in two years. Even though the tournament happened under special circumstances, our activity didn’t suffer much: we were just as eager to see and work with everybody again, and, except the fact that we had to wear masks during working hours, the pandemic seemed to have vanished, and for 10 days it was just a bad memory of something from a long time ago. Luckily, it stayed away from us and we had no incidents.

This year’s line-up was one of the strongest the tournament has ever had, almost each match was worth seeing. As always, I directed my attention to doubles. I got to see some of my favourite doubles players again as Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi and Jean-Julien Rojer played together and made their way to the final. They were defeated by Santiago Gonzalez/Andres Molteni but even so, I was happy they were here for the whole week. I also kept a close watch on Robert Lindstedt and saw both his matches in Stockholm, as they were the final ones of his career. The Swede retired and will continue to work as a coach. It was a sad and emotional moment. What I didn’t know at the time I was watching him was that another player was planning for immediate retirement in another city and at another tournament. That player was Horia Tecău. The news of his intentions saddened me as he’s one of the players I enjoy watching the most, a fellow countryman that I’ve had my eyes on for almost 20 years, traveled to see him play in various locations and woke up in the middle of the night to watch him play in all corners of the World. I was lucky enough to see him playing in Stockholm in 2019. Since the two were a stable team for 3 years, it’s clear that I will miss them both. While I was lucky enough to see Robert play one last time, I didn’t have this chance with Horia but I watched his last official ATP match online. Both players will represent their countries in the Davis Cup matches at the end of the month and then both of them are off to new beginnings in their professional lives. I’m happy I got to watch them, support them in their matches and work with them.

Going back to Stockholm Open, I must say that this year our activity was so intense that we barely had time to sit down and enjoy the finals. Usually those are the matches when all the team can simply enjoy the tennis as our Lounge is empty and we have not too many guests to take care of. But with a few games here, a few games there, some doubles matches and short glimpses at players training, I did get to see the guys in action again. Even if it’s been just a week since we closed the lounge, I can’t wait for next year’s edition. We will hopefully have more certainty in organising it due to no more pandemic, and our October week back. As for 2021: game, set, match, championship: Gonzales/Molteni and Tommy Paul.