WINSTON-SALEM — An award-winning ATP World Tour 250 men’s tennis tournament event in North Carolina wrapped up this past weekend as a warmup to the US Open.
With 48 singles players and 16 doubles teams, the week-long 2024 Winston-Salem Open finalized on Saturday at the Wake Forest University Tennis Complex as Lorenzo Sonego took home the singles title and doubles partners Nathaniel Lammons and Jackson Withrow defended their 2023 Winston-Salem Open crown.
Sonego — ranked 48th globally and the No. 10 seed in the tournament — claimed his fourth career title in a resounding 6-0, 6-3 win over American No. 11 seed Alex Michelsen, who made the top 50 (49th) of the PIF ATP Live Rankings for the first time last week.
The 29-year-old Italian got his first title since winning the Moselle Open in France in September 2022, while the 20-year-old American had a chance to be the youngest winner in the 13-year history of the tournament but struggled to keep up with his older opponent in two sets.
“It’s a crazy week for me, for my team, for my family,” said Sonego, now the 11th active player to have won a title on outdoor hard, indoor hard, clay and grass. “I brought my game every day. I’m really proud of myself. I will enjoy this moment with my team and then I’ll start to think about the US Open.”
As a former World No. 21, Sonego had dropped out of the top 50 but looked sharp in his first title in two years; he won 32 of 41 total service points (78%), while getting 19 winners compared to Michelsen’s six. Additionally, Sonego took 11 of 14 chances (79%) compared to 8 of 18 by Michelsen (44%), who was just 4 for 31 in first-return points won (13%).
In the semifinals round leading up to the championship match, Sonego had defeated David Goffin 6-3, 6-2 on Friday as Michelsen defeated Pablo Carreno Busta 7-6 (5), 2-1.
“I played very aggressively on the second serve against Goffin,” Sonego said after his Friday win. “He’s one of the biggest players of all-time, and I served very well. I had nothing on my mind and just followed the flow. I played a perfect match today. I take the confidence from my practice, and I work hard with my team each and every day. I’ve started to play better, and I’m more aggressive than last year.”
Over in the doubles bracket, the American duo of Lammons and Withrow — ranked No. 9 in the PIF ATP Doubles Team Rankings — successfully recorded their back-to-back title run of the Winston-Salem Open as they picked up a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Julian Cash and Robert Galloway, a British-American team aiming for its third title of 2024.
For Lammons and Withrow, their latest achievement marked their third title of the North American summer swing this year following victories at the Atlanta Open and the Mubadala Citi DC Open.
In last year’s Winston-Salem Open, they defeated the British pairing of Lloyd Glasspool and Neal Skupski 6-3, 6-4.
“I think they kind of said it last night with feeling a little added pressure knowing that you played well here last year and having an expectation,” Withrow said. “But at the same time, I think we feel comfortable here. It’s another great time of the year for us when we feel like we play our best tennis back in the States, we feel comfortable at home. We feel like we’re a part of this Wake community and it’s always exciting to be coming back here.”
Lammons and Withrow are now the second pair to retain the doubles title in Winston-Salem, following a statistic set by Jean-Julien Rojer and Horia Tecau in 2017-18. They have nine ATP Tour doubles titles together in total.
“You get kind of the emotional roller coaster in the first two rounds with the ten point busters and sneaking out of those was great,” Lammons said. “We kind of played ourselves into the event finally and then it was the semis and the final. I think you can’t take a negative away from it; we played a lot of matches and that was the main point.”
In the double semis, Lammons and Withrow defeated wild cards and Demon Deacon duo Luca Pow and DK Suresh 6-4, 6-2 in 47 minutes after dropping just seven points on serve; Cash and Galloway reached the finals after rallying past Jamie Murray and John Peers 5-7, 7-5, 10-8.
The Winston-Salem Open will return to the Wake Forest University Tennis Complex again next year with a start date of Aug. 17, 2025.