This is my favorite time of the tennis season. July and the first half of August.

When the tournament are numerous, not particularly important, often located in exotic lands and liable to produce random winners.

Jonathan Raymond of The National’s sports staff addressed that topic today.

People named Leonardo Mayer and Mona Barthel won tournament titles over the weekend. And I like that.

With his commentary on how he (also) likes the Tennis Silly Season, Raymond compiled a list of five winners last weekend … or seeded No. 1 in tournament this week.

That list included Sorano Cirstea, who is seeded No. 1 in the women’s tournament in Baku this week; Fabio Fognini, who is seeded first at the men’s event in Umag, Croatia; Peng Shuai, who is the No. 1 at a new little tournament in China, as well as the aforementioned Mayer and Barthel.

As Raymond notes, the number and unglamorous tournaments of this time of the year allow players to avoid having to deal with names like Djokovic, Nadal, Federer, Murray, Williams, Sharapova, et al, because most of them can’t be bothered to play in these little competitions at the end of complicated itineraries. (How does one get to Baku, from, say, Florida?)

In his list of five, on the left side of the linked story, he comes up with interesting facts on those players. Barthel’s father was a champion shot-putter; Cirstea speaks four languages and has one career victory, at Tashkent in 2008; Peng has yet to win a WTA title but was the first Chinese to be ranked No. 1 in tennis — in women’s doubles; Mayer is from Argentina and, at No. 46, was the lowest-ranked player to win a 500-series event since 2011; Fognini has a tattoo of “Grumpy” (of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs fame).

This is interesting stuff. Not just more same ol’ same ol’ of the elite people bumping into each other in the final rounds of the major touraments.  We get plenty of that, especially on the men’s side, which has pretty much calcified into The Same Four Guys winning every major competition.

As Raymond put it:

“It’s easy to forget, but tennis is a large sport, with hundreds of professionals who will never sniff glory at the All England Club or Roland Garros or Arthur Ashe Stadium or Rod Laver Arena. It becomes easy to dismiss the world-class talent it takes just to be, say, world. No 60.

“Fortunately, there are stretches like this on the tennis calendar where the lesser lights get their day to shine.”