Tennis’ travelling circus rolls on… and on

At some stage on every Wimbledon men’s final night, an ATP World Tour email lands in journalists’ inboxes announcing the small week-after claycourt event in Bastad or Umag or somewhere equally obscure – even as, at a posh venue in central London, Roger Federer, Garbine Muguruza and their entourages have barely made their grand entrances to the Champions’ Ball.

There is something almost eerily vacant, typically, about the week following a grand slam fortnight. The eyes of the sporting theatre-goers that have been so firmly trained on Melbourne Park, Roland Garros, the All England Club or Flushing Meadows turn elsewhere, as the big names and their bulging bank balances take a well-earned break. A fact, indeed, that Davis Cup organisers often bemoan as they try to spruik the virtues of the ailing teams competition to those they most need to participate… but that being a story for another day.

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For the game’s lesser lights, meanwhile, there is still a living to be made, matches to be won, and valuable rankings points to chase – which this week specifically means Bastad (the Swedish Open), Umag (Croatia Open), or the last hurrah of the grasscourt swing, across the Atlantic at the Hall of Fame Tennis Championships in Newport, Rhode Island.

As Novak Djokovic is posting family snaps with wife Jelena in matching bathrobes on their wedding anniversary, the likes of David Goffin and Pablo Carreno Busta are returning from injury as the top seeds in ATP 250 tournaments that precede the switch to North American summer hardcourts. In Newport, where the sun sets on the grasscourt season, the field includes the ATP’s three tallest men: American giants John Isner and emerging debutant Reilly Opelka, plus the venerable defending champion Ivo Karlovic. And, in case you missed it, Gojowczyk beat Kwaitkowski in the first round.

For the women, the low-key equivalents are the dirt-balling centres of the Romanian capital, Bucharest, and the Swiss resort of, yes, Gstaad, in draws headed by Caroline Garcia and Anastaija Sevastova respectively. With 38-year-old Patty Schnyder among the wildcard recipients. But without, predictably enough, a Venus Williams, deposed No.1 Angelique Kerber, or her successor, Czech Karolina Pliskova, anywhere to be seen.

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As for Federer, hangover dispensed with, he can gaze lovingly at his eighth replica of the golden Challenge Trophy, take a nice family stroll in the Swiss mountains, and enjoy the mental and physical rest that will precede the training block needed to fortify his preparations for a tilt at a sixth US Open title next month.

Marin Cilic will take three weeks off and return with that nasty blister healed, while Nick Kyrgios will be back home in Canberra while showing off his new $180,000 American muscle car. Whatever that is.

Elsewhere, the tour caravan rolls on. A fallow period for the biggest names in the game does not mean the show stops altogether; it just, like the rest for whom the majors are the centrepiece of the long tennis season, takes a small pause for breath.