Tickets for Special Fundraiser Featuring Querrey on Friday, April 24 at Hotel El Roblar On Sale at TheOjai.net; Iconic Libbey Park is Host Venue for 124th Tournament Week, April 22-26
Buy tickets HERE
One of Ventura County’s prodigal tennis stars is returning home to the 124th Ojai Tennis Tournament, an event that remains near and dear to his heart even after a prolific career that boasts 10 singles championships and five doubles titles on the ATP Tour.
Retired American star Sam Querrey, a 2006 Thousand Oaks High School graduate, has been named as the celebrated “Tournament Honoree” for the 124th Ojai Tennis Tournament, which will take place at famed Libbey Park in downtown Ojai and throughout Ventura County April 22-26.
Querrey will be celebrated at an evening reception, including dinner, drinks and music provided by Gilga Radio at the Hotel El Roblar (122 E. Ojai. Ave.) during tournament week on Friday, April 24 at 6 p.m. A limited number of tickets to this special, annual fundraising event are available for $150 and can be purchased at https://theojai.net/tournament-info/tickets/. Event proceeds support The Ojai Tennis Tournament and the Ojai Valley Tennis Club, its youth tennis programs, the enhancement of Libbey Park and local school tennis facilities throughout Ojai.
Before embarking on a successful career in professional tennis, Querrey, 38, made a name for himself as a teenager at The Ojai, where he won the Boys’ CIF event as a Thousand Oaks High sophomore in 2004. He remembers first playing The Ojai as a young junior in the Boys’ 14s and playing on a backyard court at a private residence. He would then go on to become a finalist in The Ojai’s Men’s Open singles tournament in 2006 and reach Men’s Open doubles finals with his former coach, Grant Doyle, in 2005 and 2006.
“The goal is you want to play in Libbey Park,” Querrey said. “I think a part of it was you knew if you got to Libbey Park, you knew it was going to be a packed house. It’s like one of the few times as a junior or a high school player, or even when you played the Men’s Open, you were guaranteed a big crowd in the final.
“Growing up around the area, Ojai was big. You would rather win Ojai over the Junior Sectionals. You would rather win Ojai over a lot of other tournaments that were actually considered maybe bigger events. It almost felt like a mini-Wimbledon, winning Ojai.”
Querrey is currently a popular fixture in the broadcasting booth commentating matches for ESPN during the Australian Open, the CW Network at the recent MGM Slam exhibition and for Tennis Channel during the ongoing BNP Paribas Open Masters 1000 event at Indian Wells. He is also a host of the “Nothing Major” podcast featuring Querrey’s friends and ATP rivals former Ojai champion Stevie Johnson, John Isner and Jack Sock.
Among the peak moments in Querrey’s pro career, he won four ATP singles titles and his first two doubles titles in 2010. In 2017, he won his last two ATP singles championships while advancing to the semifinals at Wimbledon and the quarterfinals at the US Open. Those results set him up to achieve his highest singles world ranking, No. 11, in February 2018.
The Ojai showcases the Big Ten Conference’s men’s postseason tournament for the first time and is the centerpiece of this year’s event. The Big Ten Tournament – exclusively playing at Libbey Park from April 22-25 – is the conference’s first men’s postseason championship event in any sport to be held in Southern California, and it features the top 10 qualifying teams from the 14 conference schools with tennis programs.
The Ojai’s Men’s and Women’s Open singles and doubles events will be contested with an overall purse of $20,000. Among other competitions, The Ojai will again serve as host to the California Community College Athletic Association (CCCAA) State Championships, the Boys’ CIF singles and doubles tournaments, and more junior competitions with the Boys’ and Girls’ 12s, 14s and 16s draws, and a Girls’ 18s draw.
The Ojai Wall of Fame at Libbey Park proudly features all-time tennis greats that played at The Ojai before going on to win a Grand Slam. Players such as Bobby Riggs, Jack Kramer, Billie Jean King, Pancho Gonzales, Arthur Ashe, Stan Smith, Pete Sampras, Bob and Mike Bryan, Lindsay Davenport and Michael Chang are some of the legends who have played at The Ojai.
Players can enter The Ojai in the coming weeks once registration is open by going to www.TheOjai.net and clicking on the “Registration Info” button on the homepage.
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