Mark Philippoussis continued to show the fine form he exhibited in a near dominating season last year on the PowerShares Series by winning the opening event of the 2017 Series Thursday night at the RPIA Championships at the Ricoh Coliseum in Toronto.
Philippoussis defeated John McEnroe 7-5 in the semifinals and Andy Roddick 7-6 (5) in the final to earn his tenth career title on the North American tennis circuit for champion tennis players over the age of 30. Philippoussis and Roddick, known as two of the best servers in the history of tennis, did not lose serve in the final as Philippoussis earned his sixth win in the last eight matches against Roddick.
In 2016, Philippoussis lost only two matches while winning five events and winning the season-long points championship for the first time. He won titles in Memphis, Tulsa, Newport, R.I., Winston-Salem and New Haven with his only match losses coming against Roddick in Portland, Oregon and Los Angeles.
“I was very happy with how I played last year and this year, I’m just as happy to be on the court and enjoying myself,” said the 40-year-old Philippoussis, who was the final-round victim of Roger Federer during the Swiss legend’s first of 18 major singles titles at Wimbledon 14 years ago.
To reach the Toronto final Thursday night, Philippoussis edged 58-year-old John McEnroe 7-5 while Roddick defeated his former U.S. Davis Cup teammate and 2004 Olympic silver medalist Mardy Fish 6-3.
Philippoussis earned 400 PowerShares ranking points with the tournament win to take the early lead in the 2017 PowerShares Series rankings. Roddick earned 200 points for finishing as runner-up while McEnroe and Fish both earned 100 points.
Each PowerShares Series event features two one-set semifinal matches and a one-set championship match and, for the second straight year, players make their own line calls with assistance of electronic line-calling.
The remaining PowerShares Series for this season schedule with player fields are listed below and ticket, schedule and player information can be found at www.PowerSharesSeries.com;
April 1 – Charleston, S.C. – John McEnroe, Andy Roddick, Mark Philippoussis, James Blake
April 28 – Birmingham, Ala. – John McEnroe, Andy Roddick, Jim Courier, Mardy Fish
May 17 – Chicago – John McEnroe, Andy Roddick, Jim Courier, Mark Philippoussis
July 23 – Newport, RI – Andy Roddick, Jim Courier, James Blake, Mardy Fish
August 20 – Winston-Salem, N.C. – Andy Roddick, James Blake, Michael Chang, Mardy Fish
August 24-25 – New Haven, Conn. – John McEnroe, James Blake, Michael Chang, Mark Philippoussis
TBD – Lincoln, Neb. – TBD
TBD – Los Angeles, Calif. – TBD
TBD – Nashville, Tenn. – TBD
In 2016, Mark Philippoussis won the PowerShares Series points title with 1600 points and tournament titles in Memphis, Tulsa, Newport, Winston-Salem and New Haven. Roddick finished in second place, also earning 1600 points but losing the head-to-head tiebreaker with Philippoussis 5-2, while winning titles in Charleston, St. Louis, Los Angeles and Orlando. James Blake finished in third place with 1100 points and tournament titles in Chicago, Portland and Brooklyn.
In 2015, Andy Roddick won the PowerShares Series points title in his second year of competing on the series with 1,600 points. Roddick won a record eight events Los Angeles, Lincoln, Chicago, Austin, Little Rock, Dallas, Richmond and Minneapolis. Blake finished second in the points rankings with 1,200 points, winning events in Boston and Cincinnati. Mark Philippoussis finished in third with 1,100 points, winning titles in Salt Lake City and Vancouver. The year before in 2014, McEnroe won the points title for the first time in the nine-year history of Champions Series tennis by winning events in Kansas City, Indianapolis, Nashville and Charlotte.
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InsideOut Sports + Entertainment is a Los Angeles based producer of proprietary events and promotions founded in 2004 by former world No. 1 and Hall of Fame tennis player Jim Courier and former SFX and Clear Channel executive Jon Venison. In 2005, InsideOut launched its signature property, the Champions Series, a collection of tournaments featuring the greatest names in tennis over the age of 30. In addition, InsideOut produces many other successful events including “Legendary Night” exhibitions, The World Series of Beach Volleyball and numerous corporate outings. Since inception, InsideOut Sports + Entertainment has raised over $4 million for charity. In 2014, InsideOut Sports + Entertainment merged with Horizon Media, the largest privately held media services agency in the world. For more information, please log on to www.InsideOutSE.com or www.powersharesseries.com or follow on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
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Invesco PowerShares Capital Management LLC is leading the Intelligent ETF Revolution® through its lineup of more than 140 domestic and international exchange-traded funds, which seek to outperform traditional benchmark indexes while providing advisors and investors access to an innovative array of focused investment opportunities. With franchise assets of nearly $100 billion as of October 2, 2015, PowerShares ETFs trade on both US stock exchanges. For more information, please visit us at invescopowershares.com or follow us on Twitter @PowerShares.
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PowerShares QQQ™, an exchange-traded fund (ETF) based on the NASDAQ-100 Index®, is one of the largest and most traded ETFs in the world. Under most circumstances, QQQ will consist of all of the stocks in the index which includes 100 of the largest domestic and international nonfinancial companies listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market based on market capitalization.
