The Matlock Report

Singles Semifinal Saturday finished with Patrick Kypson (USA) taking on Antoine Ghibaudo (FRA). It was a good match with the American ultimately prevailing over the Frenchman by the score of 6-3 6-1. Since I wasn’t there for Championship Sunday (Spoiler Alert), I’ll give away the ending and say that Kypson beat Johannus Monday in the finals. A few weeks later, it was announced that Patrick Kypson received a Wild Card berth into the Australian Open in January. Congrats to Patrick, his team, and the MarketBeat Open for making Sioux Falls a stepping stone to a Grand Slam!

Ghibaudo serves while a full complement of spectators look on…

Patrick Kypson goes high to return the volley!

Ghibaudo going for the shot!

Kypson sprinting backwards and hitting a drop shot.

Always be ready…

Well, let’s close this out with some of my favorite pics that haven’t made it so far.

Singles Semifinals Saturday began with Johannus Monday (GBR) taking Mats Rosenkranz (GER). JoMo took the match 6-4 7-6. The good news is that there were a lot of pictures that I liked out of this set, the bad news is that I’ll be posting a lot of pictures out of this set. Let’s begin….

Monday with the serve as Rosenkranz waits for the split second it will take to get to him.

Same thing, reverse the names.

Rosenkranz and Monday… working hard or hardly working? Working hard indeed.

One of the best shots of the tournament for me. Monday wins the point and one of “the Rinky guys” celebrating in the background. That whole row was there to support Rinky Hijikata in the Doubles Finals and every time he and his partner won a point they would go nuts. My son theorized that maybe they went to North Carolina with him… I wasn’t sure but they brought a lot of exuberance to the matches and was great to hear.

Mats Rosenkranz with the serve, or so it appears. I liked this picture because it has a lot of movement and I like watching the movement of his necklaces.

Rosenkranz with a hell of a shot!

Monday waiting to pounce on the serve.

Rosenkranz begins the serve.

Monday chases down the return.

Rosenkranz tees up the return!

Monday and Rosenkranz up close.

All righty, let’s wrap this up with some final shots.

Saturday in Sioux Falls was upon us! We had traveled, eaten at my favorite Chinese restaurant, made our plans for departure and were ready for some tennis action! Super Duper Saturday began with the Doubles Finals match of Juan Jose Bianchi (VEN) and Andrew Fenty (USA) taking on Rinky Hijikata (AUS) and Mac Kiger (USA). I’ve seen more doubles at the high school level than I have at the professional level but these guys were pretty good too, just kidding they were great! It was everything I could have hoped for and when the dust settled, it was the duo of Hijikata and Kiger taking home the top prize in straight sets 6-4 6-4.

I identified a bunch of pictures for this match to possibly post. Maybe it was because it was four players and not two? I don’t really know. Let’s meet our contestants!

Rinky Hijikata (Left) and Mac Kiger (Right)

Juan Jose Bianchi (Left) and Andrew Fenty (Right)

Fenty shows his powerful serve!

Hijikata and Kiger celebrate a point won. Now that we know everyone, let’s show some of the amazing talent on display in this match.

Here we have “The Rinky Guys” standing up and cheering for their guy!

The following set of pictures are a tinge out of focus but what Rinky tries to do is incredible so I’m going to give this a shot.

Buckle up now for “The Tweener”!

It didn’t make it back over the net but I’ll still give it an A+ for effort!

All right, let’s close this puppy up with a few more for the road….

It had been a few years since I’d been to Sioux Falls, SD. The trip, overall, was fantastic. Along the way, I had time to take some non-tennis related pictures. Some were at the house of our relatives, who were kind enough to let us stay at their house, and some were at Falls Park.

A beautiful birch tree in the front yard.

The trees in the back yard were beautiful as the leaves changed colors.

Close…. closer…. closest.

Despite living within close proximity to Sioux Falls for most of my youth, I had never been to Falls Park. I highly recommend it if you are in the area.

A few pictures of the railroad tracks before we headed off for lunch and another day of tennis.

This was the last match of the day on Friday. Antoine Ghibaudo (FRA) beat Martin Damm (USA) in straight sets by a score of 7-6 6-4. This was a great match to watch, lots of good pictures. Hopefully.

Ghibaudo stretches out to make the return.

Ghibaudo serves.

Damm with a serve of his own.

Damm with the return.

Ghibaudo searches for the ball to come back down.

If I tried to contort my body, as Damm does, I would be in bed for a week. Nice shot.

As the point ends, Damm walks back to the line.

Damm says “Don’t worry, I can return that”.

Ghibaudo looking good!

I especially like Damm’s “behind the back” shot.

Here’s what the TV coverage looks like….

Ghibaudo pumped up!

Rinky Hijikata (AUS) is a staple on main ATP Tour, he has won a Grand Slam in Doubles. He’s a pretty solid player. I’ll be honest, I’d never heard of Patrick Kypson (USA) before the match but he is a good player in his own right. Kypson defeated Hijikata in straight sets 6-4 6-4.

Let’s meet our contestants today…. Rinky Hijikata (Left) and Patrick Kypson (Right).

Rinky with the toss…. serve… hits the net tape… and falls back on his side of the net.

Is it an earthquake making things go off kilter? No, it’s Patrick Kypson with a classic service motion.

Both of these guys went all out for the entire match. Here’s some examples of their heroics…

I did get some good close-up shots during this match, here’s a couple of them.

Let’s finish this up with Kypson with a fabulous return.

I was excited to see this match begin and was also glad when it ended. I have seen Jordan Thompson play several matches on the main ATP Tour and was psyched that we were going to get to see him play. Thompson was apparently on the brink of not participating in the tournament due to injury. The match started and it was very obvious that Thompson was in a lot of pain. Rosenkranz won the first set 7-5 and won the first game of the second set, at which point Thompson retired. Thompson tried hard but his body wasn’t holding up, hopefully when the calendar turns at December 31st, Jordan will be ready to take on 2026.

Jordan Thompson with a nice return.

The Thompson serve!

Rosenkranz getting some good height on that toss!

Rosenkranz celebrates a point well played.

Thompson and his heavily taped leg on serve.

Sitting behind the camera man has its advantages.

This was the first match of the day. Joannus “Jo Mo” Monday (GBR) taking on Andres Martin (USA). Jo Mo is victorious in straight sets by the score of 6-3 6-3.

Martin shows how we serve in the USA!

Monday getting ready to serve.

Swing…. and follow through.

Some closeups of Martin

A couple of of Monday as well.

Monday hits the ball right at us for the win.

In this match we had Juan Jose Bianchi (VEN) and Andrew Fenty (USA) defeating Justin Boulais (CAN) and Mitchell Krueger (USA) with a score of 6-3 7-6.

I don’t have a lot of pictures of this match as I wandered into it during a set change of the singles match I was watching but let’s try it anyway.

Andrew Fenty serves as Juan Jose Bianchi stands his ground.

Same concept only Justin Boulais serves as Mitchell Krueger guards the net.

Mitchell Krueger to serve….

Bianchi makes a great return as Fenty charges the net.

The MarketBeat Open Challenger event in Sioux Falls, South Dakota was a good time. My youngest and I skipped a day of school and work and headed West until just inside the South Dakota border.

Here we have some pictures from the first Doubles Semifinal match that we saw which was Rinky Hijikata (AUS) and Mac Kiger (USA) versus Patrick Harper (AUS) and Johannus Monday (GBR).

Hijikata (Left) and Kiger (Right) teeing up their shots.

Monday (Left) serves while Harper (Right) awaits the return.

Harper goes airborne for the return.