Camden Riviere Beats World Champion Robert Fahey for Schochet Cup

Camden Riviere, the top American ranked real tennis player and currently ranked #3 in the world beat the current world champion, Robert Fahey of Australia, to with the in the annual Unites States Professional Singles competition. Despite outstanding play throughout the match,  Riviere’s speed on the court and precision with his shots was too strong for the competition. 

This year’s tournament, which included for the first time in memory all eight of the top ranked men in the world , was marked by outstanding play from the earliest rounds. To get to the Final match Fahey had to play through Tim Chisholm, who won the right to challenge him for three successive World Championships in the 2002, 2004 and 2006, in the quarterfinals and beat world #4 Bryn Sayers of Great Britain in the Semi-Finals.

On the opposite side of the draw, Riviere had perhaps the harder task of beating World Racquets champion and World #5 ranked Real Tennis player James Stout of Bermuda in a Quarterfinal match that lasted five sets and nearly three hours. In the Semi-Finals he had to battle World #2 ranked Steve Virgona of Australia in a four set match that saw many extended rallies and which lasted more than two hours.

In the finals before a capacity crowd, both Riviere and Fahey displayed magnificent shot making ability and an uncanny court sense of how to get seemingly unreturnable balls back into play. On occasion both players were able to take the impossible gets and turn them into offensive shots that pushed their opponent into a difficult shot situation.

Jay Schochet, one of the Principal sponsors of the event and the person for whom the trophy was named, was on hand to congratulate the champion and finalist personally. Speaking for both  Jay Schochet and himself, National Tennis Club President Ross Cann congratulated all the professionals and the two finalists most particularly on an outstanding week of tennis. He gave thanks the host pros, Rich Smith and Jake Worseldine, for their enormous efforts of organization throughout the week and a half of tennis and sent warm appreciation to the sponsors for their generous contributions to help fund the largest tournament purse in Real Tennis.

On his own behalf, Cann thanked Jay Schochet,  who had originally conceived of  the tournament more than twenty years ago and was instrumental in its success by make a sizable endowment to fund the purse each year, which was met by strong applause.

“We were delighted to host the best players from around the world," Beresford Packham, the Tournament Chairman, said. "Newport welcomed them with a week of social events at mansions and country clubs and even the weather played its part in making the tournament such a great success!””