Bill Ackman and some of the best tennis players in global finance faced off in the first Finance Cup
Team Wall Street's Amer Delic, the current Davis Cup captain for Bosnia, teamed up with fellow 6-foot-5 player Mario Ancic. Ancic, who works for Credit Suisse, hit a shot which Bill Ackman described as one of the best he had ever seen.
Ancic, 31, graduated from Columbia Law School and is now working in the leveraged finance group at Credit Suisse. At one point, he was ranked No. 7 in the world for singles. He had a win against Roger Federer at Wimbledon.
Team Europe's Ludovic Walter, 31, brought out the big serve that once made him rank as high as 279 in the world. Walter played No. 1 for Duke and is currently an associate at Cohen Partners in London.
Walter's partner was Swedish player Alexander Hartman, a Goldman Sachs alum who also played No. 1 at Ole Miss.
Bill Ackman had a long wait before it was his time to play.
Thomas Blake, 39, works for Jaffe Tilchin Investment Partners. Blake, who played No. 1 for Harvard, teamed up with Harvard alum Kunj Majmudar.
Majmudar, 37, played No. 1 doubles at Harvard with Thomas Blake's younger brother James. Together, they were ranked No. 1 in NCAA doubles.
Team Europe's Tobias Hildebrand, 40, is the head of HSBC Private Banking in the Nordics. He was ranked as high as 427 in singles and 210 for doubles.
Oliver Freelove, 38, was ranked 535 in the world for singles and in the top 250 for doubles. He played for the University of Illinois and was ranked No. 4 in NCAA singles.
Boutique investment bank CEO Steve Hentschel, 48, showed an incredible amount of athleticism on the court. Hentschel was the captain of the team when he played for Princeton.
Hentschel's partner was John Ross, managing partner at boutique M&A adviser Fidus Partners. Ross, 51, played for Southern Methodist University where he was a three-time All-American.
Team Europe's Alfredo Caturano, 46, is a managing director at JPMorgan. He was an Italian junior doubles champion at the under-18 level.
Caturano teamed up with Zubin Irani, a partner at Westbrook Partners and former Goldman partner. Irani, 46, was ranked in the top 30 in the world as a junior. He played No. 1 at Cornell.
Team Wall Street's Brendan Evans went pro as a teenager. He had a ranking as high as 117 in the world for singles and 119 for doubles. He won three junior grand-slam doubles tournaments with Scott Oudsema, his partner for the Finance Cup.
Scott Oudsema, 29, is a private equity associate at Mid-Ocean Partners. He was ranked No. 1 in junior doubles with Evans. Together, they won three junior grand-slam doubles tournaments.
Team Europe's captain David Anving, a 33-year-old from Sweden, showed his strong backhand during the match against Wall Street's Evans/Oudsema.
Team Europe's Luis Rattenhuber, 28, was slamming his serves. He worked at Goldman as an M&A analyst and is currently studying at Harvard Business School.
Here's Jeffrey Appel, a senior managing director at Broadband Capital. Appel noted earlier that they "hedged their position" by having a low-cost option on the indoor courts in case of rain.
Ackman caught up with Swedish activist investor Christer Gardell before their match.
Here's Gardell with HSBC Private Banking's Tobias Hildebrand and Deutsche Bank Nordics CEO Jan Olsson.
Team Europe's Thierry Lucas, a founder at Portland Hill Capital, showed intensity on the court. He won the silver medal at the Portuguese National Championship in the 40-plus category two years ago.
Lucas' partner James Reynolds was a highly ranked French junior player. Reynolds is now a managing director at Goldman.
Team Wall Street's Jon Pastel and Jose Blanco-Sanchez were too much for their competitors.
The tournament was a great opportunity for Team Wall Street and Team Europe to reconnect with old friends. Thierry Lucas knew Goldman's Pablo Salame from when they were both in London. Salame is now Goldman's co-head of global securities based in New York.
Rob Pohly, 43, is the founder of $6 billion Samlyn Capital. He played No. 1 at Yale. He teamed up with Kunj Majmudar to go against Team Europe's Oliver Freelove/James Reynolds.
Goldman's Pablo Salame, 49, played for Brown University. He was trained at the Bollettieri Academy as a child. He teamed up with Jeffrey Appel.
Appel brought his strong serve to the doubles match against Christer Gardell/Jan Olsson.
Gardell, 55, showed an incredible amount of athleticism. He didn't really start playing tennis until his 40s. He frequently plays during his lunch breaks.
Gardell's first partner was Jan Olsson, CEO of Deutsche Bank's Nordic Region. Olsson played college tennis at Pomona College.
Team Wall Street's Marc Powers, a 24-year-old analyst at Samlyn Capital, showed incredible racquet head speed. He played No. 1 at Yale all four years. He was named rookie of the year and player of the year at the Ivy League school during the same year.
Powers' doubles partner Jason Pinsky, a 28 year-old portfolio manager at Nima Capital, had some strong ground strokes. He played No. 1 at the University of Pennsylvania.
Team Europe's Luis Rattenhuber and Ludovic Walter were standouts during the tournament. Even though both had played in earlier matches, they put up a great fight against Powers/Pinsky and came out on top.
The main event, of course, was the doubles match between the two activist titans. Pershing Square CEO Bill Ackman brought his big serve, intensity, and desire to win.
Ackman partnered with Walter Dolhare, head of the markets division at Wells Fargo Securities in Charlotte, NC. Dolhare played for Notre Dame and was a ranked junior in Argentina.
Europe's biggest activist investor Christer Gardell of Cevian Capital played a strong game with his partner Zubin Irani. Both of them had played in an earlier match.
It was an intense match.
Ackman's team won.
We told you it was hot in the bubble. Everyone was drenched.
After everyone cleaned up, they met at STK in Manhattan's Meatpacking District for dinner and awards. ESPN tennis analyst Brad Gilbert presented the first Finance Cup to Appel and Ackman.
Here are the results:
Bill Ackman and some of the best tennis players in global finance faced off in the first Finance Cup
Bill Ackman and some of the best tennis players in global finance faced off in the first Finance Cup
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