WHAT-TO-DO - NASSAU, CABLE BEACH & PARADISE ISLAND - JULY 2003 Edition
They don't generate the headlines that Andre Agassi and Serena Williams do.
But two thirty-somethings, one Bahamian and one Canadian, have quietly set the international tennis world afire.
Mark Knowles and Daniel Nestor have earned their way to the top of world rankings in doubles.
"They have so much in common," explains Vicki, mother and early mentor of Knowles, and a Wimbledon player herself before she came to The Bahamas. They even share the same birthday, September 4th, although Knowles was born the year before Nestor.
Ideal combination
Both Knowles and Nestor stand six ft three. Knowles is right-handed, Nestor a lefty, an ideal combination for a doubles team. Knowles, a native of Nassau, is currently the leading Bahamian tennis player and has been a mainstay of Bahamian Davis Cup teams since 1989. He has a 39-31 career record (23-24 in singles) in Davis Cup play. He turned pro in 1992 after playing at UCLA from 1990-91, earning All-American honours in singles and doubles in '91. His highest ranking in singles was 96 (June 24th, 1996).
Nestor is a native of Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and moved with his parents to Canada in 1976 at the age of four. He turned pro in 1991.
Knowles and Nestor got together in the early 1990s and in '94 won their first doubles title in Bogota. The next year they reached the Australian Open final, semi-final at Wimbledon, final at TMS Cincinnati and a title in Indianapolis.
In 1998, Nestor and Knowles reached the finals of three of the six biggest doubles events in the world - the US Open, the French Open and the Year End World Championship - and won a fourth event, the ATP Championship.
"They have been playing together for nearly 10 years, apart from a couple of years when Nestor wanted to play for Canada in the Olympics. He and Sebastien Lareau won their gold medal," explains Vicki.
Chemistry missing
In 2000, Nestor underwent shoulder surgery and missed the first four months of the season. He returned and won four doubles titles with three different partners. For two years Knowles and Nestor played doubles with different partners, and although both had limited success, "they both realized the chemistry was missing," says Vicki. They began playing together again in 2002.
By August of that year they had climbed to the top of the doubles ranking. They reached finals in three of four Grand Slam tournaments, winning their first Slam at the Australian Open in Melbourne, defeating France's Michael Llodra and Fabrice Santoro, 7-6, 6-3. They were runners-up at the French Open and Wimbledon. They won Tennis Masters Series events in Indian Wells, CA; Madrid, Spain; and Miami, FL; and other tournaments in Indianapolis, IN; Dubai; and Nottingham, England.
Winning ways
The successes have continued into 2003 with early tournament titles in Memphis, TN; Acapulco, Mexico; Houston, TX; and Hamburg, Germany. They reached the finals at the Nasdaq 100 Open in Miami and the Australian Open, where they lost to the French pair they had defeated a year earlier.
Off the tournament circuit Knowles has been elected as doubles representative for 2002-2003 ATP Player Council. He has also organized and hosted the Mark Knowles Celebrity Tennis Invitational at the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island for the past two years, raising nearly $70,000 for local charities.
Last year's event attracted such stars as Andre Agassi, Jim Courier, James Blake, Brian McPhee, Tommy Haas, Fred Stolle, Mark Merklein, Nestor and female competitors Amanda Coetzer and Chanda Rubin. The 2003 event is slated for Atlantis December 5-7.
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