The curtain fell on the XL Bermuda Open at 6.40 p.m. on Saturday night -- as the Island's version of a tennis Woodstock came to a grinding halt.

There were 74 matches, including qualifying, during the week-long Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) World Series event at Coral Beach and Tennis Club.

All signs point to a return engagement in 1996.

Even before Saturday's singles and doubles finals took place, a sequel to this year's Open was given a hearty endorsement by tour officials, who have played a major behind-the-scenes role at the Paget club throughout the week.

But a decision on whether the tour returns to Bermuda will be made during the next few weeks after evaluations are completed by executives of the ATP, United States Tennis Association (USTA) and Advantage International, the sports marketing and management firm which ran the tournament for the USTA.

XL Open gets rave reviews "I would be shocked if the tournament didn't come back,'' said Ron Erskine, an executive with Advantage, shortly after Mauricio Hadad of Colombia won the singles championship over Javier Frana of Argentina before a packed house at Coral Beach on Saturday.

Grant Connell of Canada and Todd Martin of the US won the doubles crown over Jason Stoltenberg of Australia and Brett Steven of New Zealand.

"I don't see any way that it can't come back,'' added Erskine, who was also the Open's tournament director. "The whole experience has been extremely positive.'' On the down side, the Open survived a rain-plagued opening day, some bickering about the condition of the clay on Stadium Court and Tourism Minister the Hon.

C.V. (Jim) Woolridge's mangling of the names of the doubles runners-up during a prize presentation on Saturday.

"The weather really cut us a break,'' said Erskine. "The court just doesn't drain that well, but on Monday we had the luxury of it being early enough in the week so that we could forget about playing and let the court get better.

"With the exception of the drainage there really wasn't any weakness this week at all.'' Erskine viewed the tournament's biggest asset as "the people of Bermuda and that means the local support we got from sponsors to boxholders. And the people at Coral Beach really stepped up and were willing to go way above and beyond the norm to get things done''.

Even if the drainage problem isn't corrected Erskine confirmed that the tournament would return to Coral Beach.

"Maybe it would make sense for us to try and reconfigure a stadium on another (Coral Beach) court that might drain differently. But, ultimately, anything that happens here on the site is with George and Claudia Wardman's blessing and that's the way it should be.'' Wardman is general manager of Horizons Ltd., owners of Coral Beach.

Players reacted even more positively to the event.

"To be perfectly honest, and I know I'm biased because I'm a resident here, but I would be hard pressed to think of another World Series event that's better than this from a player's point of view,'' said Connell. "The fans are great.'' Martin, the Open's top seed in the singles draw, but a loser in the second round to hard-hitting Michael Tebbutt of Australia said: "I think everything was great. The tournament was run very well...by the locals who were putting it on and Advantage. It's enjoyable here and I can't say that it's only because of the beauty of Bermuda.'' Tournaments are sometimes hurt when top seeds are sent packing, but that didn't appear to be a problem here. All but two of the top eight seeds vanished by the quarter-finals.

"Typically with a lot of first-year events you don't see sellout crowds anywhere during the week,'' said Erskine. "And you don't see sellout crowds if your top couple of seeds are not playing singles.

"In Bermuda, for sure, there were some tickets sold on the basis that maybe Martin would be playing on Saturday, but in the end it didn't diminish anybody's enthusiasm.'' Later he added: "What was very encouraging for me to see and for the ATP and USTA to see was how the crowds in Bermuda are very knowledgeable about tennis and appreciative of world class tennis regardless of who the players are.'' Singles runner-up Frana echoed Connell's comments.

"It was a beautiful tournament and not because I went to the final,'' he said. "The people were very nice and the Island is beautiful. And everything was perfect for the players. The facility, the people ...everything was just great.'' Hadad vowed to return in '96.

"It's been a great trip, everything has been perfect...there's no complaining from me.''