YARMOUTH — The venerable wordsmith Jerry Remy, on a recent Boston Red Sox television broadcast, used humuggity to describe the oppressive heat of mid-July.

The term certainly seemed appropriate for this weekend’s 30th edition of Maine’s premier tennis tournament, the Betty Blakeman Memorial, which saw two open singles champions crowned Sunday at Yarmouth High.

One of them, Eliot Potvin, won for the second time in four years. A two-time boys’ singles champion at Hampden Academy, Potvin went on to play four years at Georgia Tech, and spent another year on the American and Canadian professional circuit.

Now 30 and the head pro at Portland Country Club, Potvin used an effective serve-and-volley game against another two-time high school champ, Nick Forester of Falmouth, to win the men’s open singles title, 6-2, 6-2.

Forester, 18, will attend Bates College in the fall. Because of an injury and college recruiting commitments, Forester had not played the Blakeman since reaching the Round of 16 before he was in high school.

The other Blakeman champ was Olivia Cutone, 12, who will begin seventh grade at Middle School of the Kennebunks this fall. Cutone defeated 14-year-old Margaux Molyneux of Washington D.C. in the women’s open final, 6-2, 6-4.

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Like Remy, Cutone came up with an interesting new word, creating a verb out of an adjective to describe the reasoning behind her willingness to remain behind the baseline for much of the match.

“I’ve been trying to come up to net,” Cutone said, “but I knew I could just outconsist her.”

The Blakeman has had only one previous pre-teen champion. Meghan Kelley of Falmouth won the 2010 women’s title at age 12. Kelley, who graduated this spring after four years at the University of Virginia, turned 13 three months after winning her Blakeman; Cutone won’t do so until March.

It seemed fitting that the youngest champion emerged from the youngest field. None of the eight girls in the women’s field has yet to enter college.

Cutone and Molyneux practice together at the Portland Country Club under Potvin’s watchful eye. Molyneux, whose family has a summer place on Great Diamond Island, has at least 5 inches of height on Cutone but said the younger girl “usually beats me. This is the first time we’ve played an official match.”

Both girls won their opening matches Friday and Saturday, with Molyneux dropping only one game and Cutone three. It was 2-2 in the opening set Sunday when Cutone held serve, earned the first break and won the next four games to take a 2-0 lead in the second.

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Undaunted, Molyneux won the next four before Cutone wrestled back momentum.

“She’s really consistent,” Molyneux said. “But if you give her anything in her strike zone, she’ll take advantage of it.”

Forester, seeded second, knocked off No. 3 Jai Aslam (the defending champ) 6-1, 6-0 in a semifinal. The top-seeded Potvin had an easier path because his semifinal opponent, No. 5 Ben Eckardt, withdrew, still feeling the effects of Saturday’s heat and humidity.

Potvin’s quarterfinal opponent, No. 8 Owen Patrick, also withdrew after Potvin won the opening set, 6-1.

“I had a pretty light time through,” said Potvin, who also played mixed doubles. “In this heat, the less time on court, the better.”

“He just outplayed me,” Forester said. “I knew I’d have to play basically a perfect match to beat him.”

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Potvin held serve throughout the first set but was broken in the second when Forester took a 2-0 lead. One point from falling behind 3-0, Potvin prevailed on his third break point against the dual-handed Forester and reeled off the next five games.

“Every game on his serve was tough,” Potvin said. “I was able to break through a couple times but they were long, long games. I knew I had to keep the ball deep and not give him too many short forehands, which with Nick, is any short ball.”

In other singles action, Falmouth High girls’ tennis coach Lori Poulin of Cumberland won the 35-and-over women’s title over Sue Strasenburgh of Falmouth 6-1, 6-2, and Jim Levesque of Bowdoin claimed his fourth 55-and-over title with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over eight-time men’s open champion Brian Mavor of Windham.

Eric Blakeman, the son of the event’s namesake, said roughly $25,000 was raised for The Dempsey Center to help families dealing with cancer. That brings the three-decade total to more than $300,000.

 


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