{"id":50807,"date":"2026-07-30T09:33:32","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T13:33:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2026\/07\/30\/whats-the-busiest-week-in-tennis-lots-of-things-at-a-wedding\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T09:33:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T13:33:32","slug":"whats-the-busiest-week-in-tennis-lots-of-things-at-a-wedding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportsdaily.news\/index.php\/2026\/07\/30\/whats-the-busiest-week-in-tennis-lots-of-things-at-a-wedding\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s the busiest week in tennis? lots of things at a wedding"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Asia Muhammad didn’t have to set a wedding date when her now-husband, James Cross, proposed to her in August last year.<\/p>\n

Among the many — many<\/i> — Other details will be finalized in the coming months, but choosing a date was not among them. They wanted to get married in warmer weather in their home base of Vancouver, British Columbia, so their options narrowed down to just one week.<\/p>\n

Needless to say, Muhammad also had a bachelorette party and bridal shower planned in the days leading up to the ceremony, so there wasn’t much room for flexibility.<\/p>\n

Muhammad, currently ranked 40th in doubles and as high as No. 8, spends most of the year living out of a suitcase as part of a globetrotting, seemingly endless tennis schedule. There’s also a small window at the end of November after the season ends and before preseason training begins, but for tennis players who want to get married during the traditional wedding season without missing out on any substantial time on tour, there’s essentially only one week left on the jam-packed calendar.<\/p>\n

Muhammad is one of several tennis players to get married in the week following Wimbledon, joining Daria Kasatkina, Tommy Paul, Tereza Mihalikova, Katie Boulter and Alex de Minaur (the latter two of whom also got married).<\/p>\n

With tight time constraints and knowing offers were coming, Muhammad, a 13-time WTA doubles champion, began unofficially looking for a venue even before Cross asked. Muhammad, who is originally from Las Vegas, knew many of her family members were coming to British Columbia for the first time, and knew many friends on tour with similarly demanding schedules, so she wanted the event to be perfect.<\/p>\n

“I don’t actually know because I didn’t think he still had a ring, but this may sound a little crazy, but I like to be organized,” Muhammad, 35, told ESPN this week. “So I thought, ‘Okay, now this weekend is really important to us, so we need to see what our options are.’ And when we got engaged, we wanted to secure a venue for that date right away. It felt like we were in such a rush, but we wanted to get married[in 2026]so we had to do it.”<\/p>\n\n

Getting organized may be the only way to have a successful wedding in the middle of tennis season.<\/p>\n

The 2026 schedule begins on January 2 in Australia, so most players from other regions will need to head Down Under a week earlier to get used to the time difference and conditions. Since then, WTA and ATP tournaments have been held basically non-stop in the Middle East, South America, the United States, and Europe. For American players like Muhammad, that means long periods away from home, including from April to July, when the clay and grass court seasons are back-to-back.<\/p>\n

That means some very atypical wedding planning.<\/p>\n

Some players prefer having one less thing to consider since they have limited options for choosing a date.<\/p>\n

“It actually helped because there weren’t too many dates to choose from,” De Minaur told ESPN before the season. “We have a tight schedule, so it came down to when we could get a second second for ourselves. That’s how we made all the decisions.”<\/p>\n

But as any married person knows, there are still many other decisions to make, including location. De Minaur and Boulter chose to wed in Tuscany, Italy, after having an intimate and impromptu ceremony in Boulter’s native England a week earlier. Kasatkina and his wife, an Olympic silver medal-winning figure skater, chose to wed on a beach in Greece. But Muhammad and Cross planned to stay in their hometown.<\/p>\n

Availability limited our search as some of the area’s popular venues were already booked. By October, the couple had agreed to tie the knot at a nearby botanical garden and have a reception at a hotel — what Ms. Muhammad called an “ode” to her Las Vegas roots.<\/p>\n

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However, the couple soon realized that they could not do it alone, given the demands of Muhammad’s work. Between practices and matches at last year’s U.S. Open, Muhammad found herself reaching out to wedding planners.<\/p>\n

“We knew finding a wedding planner had to be one of the first things we did, so it was only right that we send a message to those from New York,” Muhammad said. “Obviously I just need help and I’m not really home.”<\/p>\n

Muhammad admits it was hard to let go of some of the control and rely on others, and he finally found someone he could trust. When the planner started booking the couple’s needs and taking charge without asking, she knew right away that this was the right decision.<\/p>\n

And that same planner also helped with some other unconventional aspects. Usually too far away from their wedding day, Muhammad and Cross were able to sample the menu in February and choose all their dishes months in advance. Muhammad didn’t even get a chance to visit the wedding venue in person until the week of the wedding, so she relied on photography and a planner to bring her vision to life.<\/p>\n

Dress shopping was also a unique process. She started looking while in New York for the U.S. Open, but nothing “just clicked.” When I briefly returned to Vancouver in September, I found a dress I liked and bought it, but then I had second thoughts.<\/p>\n

“The dress was gorgeous, but it’s like putting makeup on a pig. We were just trying to make it unreal,” Muhammad said.<\/p>\n

She returned to the same store later because she already knew she wanted two dresses that day. She tried on several ceremony dresses and ended up purchasing a new dress in addition to the reception dress. But since it was March and the deadline was already shortened, they knew she wouldn’t be able to get back to Vancouver until right before the wedding, so the store created a shortened and accelerated fitting schedule that allowed her to return twice a week before the wedding to have the dress adjusted.<\/p>\n

But perhaps most stressful was that Muhammad was playing at Wimbledon, some 7,700 miles away, the week before the wedding.<\/p>\n

She did not choose mixed doubles to reduce further barriers on her return. But she was well aware of how difficult things would be if she and her other doubles partner, Fanny Stoller, made it to the final, held six days before the ceremony and on the day scheduled for the first dress fitting. Muhammad admitted it was a “huge problem” and would have had to fly her Las Vegas-based hairstylist to Vancouver instead of stopping there first.<\/p>\n

In the end, Muhammad and Stoller lost in the round of 16, allowing her to fly to Las Vegas on Wednesday, July 8th. She had her hair and nails done by her longtime stylist for “all the girly things” and was able to source other supplies for the week’s various events. On Sunday, the day of the doubles final at the All England Club, Muhammad took a 6 a.m. flight back to Vancouver and headed straight from the airport to a bridal store.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, she returned for her second fitting and then went straight to her bachelorette party. Organized by fellow WTA players Erin Routliff and Alexa Guarachi, two longtime friends of Mr. Muhammad who tried to keep plans for the event as secret as possible, the group drove about 45 minutes to a lake outside Vancouver and enjoyed a day of boating and other activities.<\/p>\n

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Routliff and Guaraci declined to share many details at Muhammad’s request, but they couldn’t help but share the information with other players in the locker and training rooms at tournaments.<\/p>\n

“Sometimes I’d go see a physical therapist for treatment, and Erin would babble to other people there and they’d be talking about it, and she’d say, ‘You can’t say anything!’ to them,” Muhammad said. “Other people knew, but I had no idea. It was very interesting.”<\/p>\n

Since the party went from party to wedding so quickly, Muhammad confessed that there’s one more consideration that most single people probably don’t have to think about.<\/p>\n

“I wanted to keep my skin moisturized, so I couldn’t cut out the power too much,” said Muhammad, who rarely drinks during the season, with a laugh. “That might be the only downside to being single the same week as the wedding. There just wasn’t enough time to recover.”<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Muhammad and his friends returned to Vancouver. The next morning, she had a bridal shower with family and friends, followed by a rehearsal dinner that night. On Saturday, July 18, after months of planning from all over the world, Muhammad and Cross were married.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t until she entered the reception hall after the ceremony that she truly realized how much trust she had in her wedding planner — someone she hadn’t met less than a year ago — and that everything was going to be okay.<\/p>\n

“Just coming back for the unveiling before the reception felt very strange in a lot of ways because we were almost blindsided,” Muhammad said. “Of course, I was really particular about what I wanted and trusted my wedding planner, but if I didn’t like it, it was too late to do anything. So when I walked into the room, I was blown away.<\/p>\n

“I was literally crying. I thought, ‘Oh my God.’ It just felt like a huge weight had been lifted. It was such a relief.”<\/p>\n

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It was everything both Muhammad and Cross had hoped for.<\/p>\n

And what was most special was being able to celebrate in the same room with so many people from all walks of life, including about 10 WTA players. It was Jessica Pegula’s second wedding this week, having already attended Paul and Paige Lorenze’s wedding in New York on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

“She’s been busy,” Muhammad joked.<\/p>\n

The newlyweds’ honeymoon to South Africa would have to wait until November, but it was a blessing in disguise. After months of traveling and the most eventful week of her life, she was grateful to have time to relax and spend time with Cross.<\/p>\n

Muhammad seriously considered competing in this week’s Mubadala DC Open, but ultimately chose to withdraw. Citing the classic tennis player’s “go, go, go” mentality, she admitted she still felt some guilt about her decision, but said she just wanted a few days to “enjoy married life.” She is scheduled to return to the tour next week at the Canadian Open in Toronto.<\/p>\n

But for Kasatkina, Paul, Mihalikova, Boulter and de Minaur, it was back to work and back to reality. They all played in a 500-level event this week in Washington, DC.<\/p>\n

De Minaur told ATP this week of her wedding to Boulter: “It was a wonderful time. (It was) everything we imagined.” “It was like our own little movie. We were able to celebrate with family and friends and have a very small two-day honeymoon.<\/p>\n

“Then we’re going to get on a plane here to Washington and straighten our heads and get back to being tennis players.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n