YARMOUTH — For three decades, the Betty Blakeman Memorial Tournament was the premier event on the Maine Tennis Association summer calendar.
Last held in 2019, the Blakeman raised more than $300,000 for cancer-related organizations in Maine before Betty’s children, Eric and Carrie, decided to close it down in 2020 when the pandemic forced cancellation of the concurrent Yarmouth Clam Festival.
The festival returned this year, and with it came the inaugural Clamfest Tennis Classic, a tournament held at the same venue and with many of the same characteristics as the venerable Blakeman. Eliot Potvin and Brian Mavor – each of whom won individual singles titles both in high school (for Hampden Academy and Cape Elizabeth, respectively) and in the Blakeman – teamed up to organize the event.
“We didn’t know what we were going to get for participation, being the first year back and being a little late in securing the courts and stuff,” said Potvin, the new owner of Foreside Fitness in Falmouth. “The turnout was not as big as it’s been, but just the feel, I was really thrilled to feel some of that. It’s a step in the right direction.”
Potvin was the top seed in a men’s open singles field of 48, the largest of the seven brackets that played out through the weekend at Yarmouth High and the Val Halla courts in nearby Cumberland. He prevailed in the finals Sunday afternoon, 6-0, 2-6, 6-2, against No. 3 Noah Bragg of Portland.
Potvin, 33, won the 2016 and 2019 Blakeman tournaments. Bragg, soon to be 29, won the 2013 Blakeman in his only appearance as a rising junior at Bowdoin College.
“It was a great experience,” Bragg remembered. “The whole Maine tennis community comes out for it.”
Roughly three dozen onlookers watched the 1-hour, 40-minute championship match, played beneath mostly sunny skies and temperatures in the low 80s. Potvin, who had won their only previous meeting on clay two years earlier, was dominant in the opening set, but Bragg became the aggressor in the second, converting his first break point on a rare Potvin double fault.
“I knew that if I hung back and let him attack, I wasn’t going to have a chance,” Bragg said. “So I just stepped in and started swinging freely.”
During the changeover prior to the decisive third set, Potvin engaged in some self-talk. He had won the opening set playing mainly from the baseline, deploying heavy topspin on both his forehand and backhand. In the second, it was Bragg dictating tempo.
“I sat there and I said I’m not going to be able to win this playing long points,” Potvin said. “I’ve got to make a commitment, win or lose, to putting the pressure back on him instead of me being the one on defense.”
Discarding defensive slices, Potvin turned to a chip-and-charge, serve-and-volley approach. It wasn’t always successful, but he won significantly more points than he lost. At 1-1 in the third set, his backhand pass set up a break point against Bragg.
A shanked forehand return landed just inside the baseline, allowing Potvin time to move in and finish off the game at net. He proceeded to hit three service winners in the next game to take control at 3-1. Potvin finished with five aces to one for Bragg.
“He played a really smart third set,” Bragg said. “He started really coming in, changing the tempo of the match. I was fighting as hard as I could, but he played really well.”
The largest men’s open field in Blakeman history was 112 players. However, this year’s semifinals included three former champions (No. 8 Jai Aslam of Belgrade, the 2018 champion, beat No. 2 Dan Rodefeld of Portland in the quarterfinals before falling 6-1, 6-1 to Bragg in the semis).
Potvin reached the finals by dispatching Massachusetts teenager Joel McCandless, 6-1, 6-3. McCandless, seeded ninth, knocked off No. 5 George Cutone, the two-time defending Maine high school singles state champion from Kennebunk, 7-5, 6-1 in the quarterfinals.
“That’s the strongest quarterfinal draw I’ve seen in men’s singles,” said Eric Blakeman, one of the dozen or so volunteers who helped Potvin and Mavor get the inaugural event off the ground. “With the 30th (Blakeman tournament), that was it. But everyone wanted to show up and support Eliot and his new tournament.”
Potvin said the total field for all seven brackets was 95 players, about 40 of whom took part in multiple events. Lesya Stasiv of Yarmouth won women’s open singles with a 6-0, 6-1 victory over 14-year-old Sofia Kirtchev of Falmouth in a field of five.
Stasiv, who won the Blakeman in 2000, teamed up with her daughter, Sofia Mavor, for another victory in the three-team women’s open doubles bracket.
Sofia Mavor and Mike Hill won the mixed doubles crown over a field of six. In a field of five, Brian Mavor won the 45-and-over men’s singles final against Bert Cole 7-6 (5), 7-6 (5).
In the tournament’s final event, Bragg and Rodefeld teamed up to beat the top seed in men’s open doubles, which sported a field of 22 teams. Bragg and Rodefeld, seeded third, prevailed 6-3, 7-6 (7) for over Joshua Rubel (rising freshman at Williams College from Texas) and Matt Danielson (rising junior at Bates from Florida).
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
