Jim Westhall Sr., who headed the Volvo International in its days in New Hampshire, Vermont and ultimately Connecticut, passed away on Nov. 26th in North Conway, N.H., the very town that played host to the tournament during its most roseate years. He was 88.

A graduate of Duke University, Westhill began his career in radio and television, including doing play-by-play for Dartmouth football. He was an assistant to New Hampshire Congressman Louis C. Wyman, and later worked for a communications law firm and a national airline. As owner/tournament director, Westhall took a fledgling event that Bud Collins dubbed “Wimbledon of the Woods” and Rod Laver called “a little old country hit” and transformed it into a showcase for some of the world’s top players. Among the titlists during Westhall’s run were Laver, Jimmy Connors, Ivan Lendl, John McEnroe, Andre Agassi, Stefan Edberg and Boris Becker.

The Volvo International was originally played on the outdoor clay courts of Bretton Woods (1973-74) and North Conway (1975-84) in New Hampshire, before moving to the hard courts of Stratton Mountain Resort in Vermont (1985-89).

“He had no experience in tennis, but he clearly had a mind for promotion,” said longtime Haverford College men’s coach Sean Sloane, who served as Westhall’s head referee and adviser from the very start. “He was quite an innovator. I think a lot of other tournaments have copied stuff that he started.”

“Jim Westhall was a showman,” said Bill Norris, a longtime trainer with the ATP World Tour. “He had great ideas. He really made his mark in tennis in the early ‘70s. There was really no template for being a tournament director back in those days. It was the infancy of the professional game.”

In 1990, Westhall was instrumental in moving the event, later known as the Pilot Pen International, to New Haven, Conn., making it the state’s first major tennis tournament. In its first two years there, the US Open tune-up attracted 265,000 spectators.

Westhall led a push for expansion of the Connecticut Tennis Center at Yale (today the Cullman-Heyman Tennis Center), which upon completion was the second largest tennis stadium in the world (15,000 capacity).

“When he moved to Connecticut, that was huge,” said Sloane. “He wanted to stay in upper New England, but he also wanted the tournament to continue to grow. He knew the risk he was taking by going to New Haven.”

“North Conway was the most special place — at the bottom of Mount Cranmore,” remembered Norris. “He used to transport players by helicopter from the tournament hotel because traffic was so heavy. It really had a circus- or county-fair-type feeling. All these great names were playing — Connors, Guillermo Vilas.”

In was at the Volvo International in 1979 that Connors had to be shuttled from North Conway via helicopter to catch a flight to Los Angeles, arriving with only hours to spare before his wife, Patti, gave birth to their son, Brett.

Westhall’s promotional stunts were legendary. He held live draws on the top of Mount Washington, on a boat at sea, with veteran official Frank Hammond in a dive tank, and with help from a skydiver. During his tenure in New Haven, the event was the first to introduce music during changeovers. In 1995, he famously settled a bet with Agassi. The wager? His hair. Westhall said that if Agassi won the title he would allow the future Hall of Famer to cut his famously long locks on court.

According to the New Haven Register, Agassi called it “the thickest, nappiest head of hair I’ve ever seen.”

“I never thought it would happen to me,” said Westhall, who in 2004 authored Nonsense at the Net: A Rags to Riches to Rags Story (Or…How a Little Backwoods Tennis Tournament Made it to the Big Leagues). “But here we are. I’ll do anything to get this tournament to be the best in the world.”

In April 1997, he sold the tournament to a partnership group headed by Butch Buchholz.

He is survived by his wife, Vera, their three children, James, Jr., Suzanne and Lisa, two grandchildren and a great grandson.

Jamie Murray is a man on a mission. Still basking in the glow of his country’s Davis Cup glory last weekend, the Briton is already looking ahead to what could be an even better 2016.

After making the decision to part ways with Australian John Peers at the end of the season, Murray is now focused on finding even more success with former World No. 3 Bruno Soares of Brazil.

“He’s a very experienced player and he’s been at the top of the doubles game for quite a while now,” Murray told The Tennis Podcast this week in London. “I play in the deuce court so I wanted to find someone that was playing in the ad court and Bruno is one of the best in the world on that side. He’s got one of the best returns in the world, and I haven’t really played with a steady returner yet in my career. I thought that those aspects would really match up well with my playing style.”

Having both fallen in their previous Grand Slam final appearances, their mutual goal is clear.

“I think for both of us, our goal, however long the partnership lasts, will be to try to win a Grand Slam doubles title,” Murray said. “Of course you go into every partnership with the best of intentions, and every partnership is different, but we’ll work hard for it.”

This past season was undoubtedly a breakthrough year for Murray, reaching two Grand Slam finals and making his debut at the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, before crowning the campaign with Great Britain’s historic triumph in Ghent alongside young brother, Andy.

“It’s been my best year by an absolute mile,” said Murray. “I had a great year with John Peers. We got to the final of Wimbledon and the final of the US Open. I finished the year 7th in the world and we finished 4th in the [Emirates ATP Doubles] team rankings so we got to play at the [Barclays ATP World Tour] Finals for the first time, which was awesome. Then obviously the Davis Cup throughout the whole year has been an incredible experience, topped off in Ghent at the weekend.”

It’s only days since the Murray brothers united to secure victory in the crucial doubles rubber for Great Britain in the Davis Cup final against Belgium, and it’s clear that emotions are still running high.

“It was intense,” said Murray. “I did feel nervous, but it wasn’t actually too bad. I was really looking forward to playing because for me, growing up as a kid, that is what you wanted to do – play in big stadiums in front of a lot of people. I wouldn’t say I played my best ever tennis match, but we focused as hard as we could, tried to just play one point at a time and thankfully we got over the finish line.”

This week, Murray joined up with another legend of the game, seven-time Grand Slam Champion and fellow Davis Cup winner, Mats Wilander, in an exhibition doubles match at the Champions Tennis at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

“It is nice to play with those guys, they are all legends of the game,” said Murray. “It’s been cool to play at the Royal Albert Hall with it being such an iconic venue. You never normally associate it with sports, so it is something different and very cool.”

Next up for Murray is an off-season training in Dubai, where Andy will also be gearing up for the 2016 season.

“Andy will be in Dubai at the same time, but I probably won’t train with him. I’m going with my coach Alan McDonald and Colin Fleming is coming out as well. We’ll probably focus on more doubles specific stuff, and I’ll leave Andy to do the hard work. I can’t honestly claim to train as hard as Andy does. I think from a doubles point of view, it’s a lot more about short, sharp explosive stuff, and not so much about endurance, because you don’t really need it in doubles now with the scoring system on the ATP World Tour.”

New partner Soares is spending the off-season with his family in Brazil, but the pair are planning to make their debut as a team in Doha at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open.

“I know that a lot of hard work has to go into making a partnership work. I hope that we’re both ready to do that and obviously I hope that we can hit the ground running.”

2. Stan Wawrinka d. Novak Djokovic 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4, Roland Garros final
Novak Djokovic was on a date with destiny. Only seven players – three in the Open Era – had completed the career Grand Slam by winning all four majors, and the World No. 1 was one match win from cementing his place in the club when he squared off against Stan Wawrinka in the Roland Garros final.

The Serb had routed nine-time champion Rafael Nadal in the quarter-finals and fended off a late charge from third seed Andy Murray in the semis. With Roger Federer also eliminated, the stars appeared to be aligned. Djokovic was on the doorstep of history, but an inspired Wawrinka stood tall. The Swiss captured a second Grand Slam championship, denying Djokovic on the terre battue.

Wawrinka was rewarded for playing lights-out tennis for much of the three-hour, 12-minute contest. He struck 59 winners, almost twice as many as Djokovic, and never let his head drop as the Serb relentlessly fended off break points. After rallying from 0/40 down in the eighth game of the fourth set – having already been a break down – Wawrinka fired a backhand winner to break Djokovic and served out the contest, saving a break point before finishing with another lethal backhand.

“I’m still surprised the way I played, because I think I played amazing today,” said Wawrinka. “I was really nervous, but I didn’t really choke. I was always going for my shots, always going for the right play. I was trying to have longer rallies, trying to play more deep, trying to play more aggressive from baseline, and little by little, I started to be the player inside the court.”

The Lausanne native added to the Australian Open crown he won in January 2014 (d. Nadal), making him just the sixth active player to win multiple major titles. The 30-year-old Wawrinka, who won the boys’ singles title in Paris in 2003 (d. Baker), became the first former junior champion to lift the men’s singles trophy since Mats Wilander in 1988. It was the third time that Djokovic, who was moved to tears during the trophy ceremony, had finished runner-up in Paris, having fallen to Nadal in the 2012 and 2014 finals.

“You go through emotions,” Djokovic added. “Of course I was more nervous than any other match. It’s the final of Roland Garros. We both were aware of the importance of this match, and that’s why you tend to have these particular situations. But at least I’m proud of the fight that I put into this match. I tried my best. It wasn’t to be.”

1. Fabio Fognini d. Rafael Nadal 3-6, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4, US Open third round
In one of the more drama-filled rivalries of the 2015 season, sparks flew whenever Rafael Nadal and Fabio Fognini squared off this year. The Italian dethroned the Spaniard in Rio de Janeiro and upset Nadal on his home soil in Barcelona months later, before the former World No. 1 exacted revenge in the Hamburg final. Their sudden rivalry would reach a thrilling climax in September, on the hard courts of the US Open.

With Tiger Woods in attendance, under the lights of Arthur Ashe Stadium, Fognini produced a stunning comeback win from two sets down that sent shockwaves throughout Flushing Meadows. He fired 70 winners to reach the Round of 16 in the early hours of the middle Saturday in New York, with the match finishing around 1:30am. Fognini’s dazzling shot-making ended Nadal’s streak of winning at least one Grand Slam title a year for 10 straight years.

Nadal had been a perfect 151-0 at Grand Slam level after winning the first two sets, while Fognini’s record of winning from two sets down at the majors was 4-19. He had never beaten a Top 10 player on hard courts in 17 previous attempts.

After dropping the first two sets, Fognini turned in one of the most breathtaking shot-making displays of the year. He clubbed forehand and backhand winners from all parts of the court with exquisite timing. He also attacked the net regularly, winning 39 of 52 approaches. In a rollercoaster final set, the players held their opening serves but then exchanged seven consecutive breaks before Fognini served out the match from 5-4.

“With Rafa you have to try something different,” said Fognini. “It’s not easy. It is a really special win. If you want to play against him and if you want to do something different, you have to take risks. That’s the only thing. Probably I made a lot of unforced errors, but it doesn’t matter. You have to do that with a great player who runs a lot on the baseline.”

“He played great,” Nadal said. “It was not a match that I lost, even if I had opportunities. It’s a match that he won. So I accept that.”

More: Best Grand Slam & Davis Cup Matches Of 2015 Nos. 5-3