Career-best performances, ITF doubles titles & a trophy brace for Andrew Penney
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Catch up with the latest from the world of British tennis as Brits brought home titles across the ITF World Tennis Tours.
Nicholls & Pinnington Jones enjoy strong weeks on tour
Olivia Nicholls had an impressive week on the WTA Tour as she equalled her career-best performance at a WTA 1000 doubles event in the China Open.
Nicholls and Tereza Mihalikova knocked out the top seeds Gabriela Dabrowski and Erin Routliffe in the second round but lost in the quarter-finals against seventh seeds Hao-Ching Chan and Veronika Kudermetova 7-6(5), 6-3.
The 29-year-old is now up to a career-high of world No.41 in the WTA doubles rankings.
One of the standout performances of the week was from 21-year-old Jack Pinnington Jones who reached his first ATP Challenger singles semi-final in Tiburon, USA.
The Texas Christian University (TCU) tennis star came through his opening three matches in straight sets before losing out to American and eventual champion Nishesh Basavareddy 6-2, 6-3.
Pinnington Jones was on the same collegiate team as now top 100-star Jacob Fearnley last year, with the pair playing a key role in winning the school’s first NCAA championship.
The young Brit also made headlines over the summer after he knocked out then British No.1 Cam Norrie in the second round of the Rothesay Open Nottingham.
Doubles titles on the ITF Tour
There were three British titles on the ITF World Tennis Tour last week. Sarah Beth Grey and Mimi Xu were champions in France last week at the W35 Reims.
Beth Grey and Xu were unstoppable in their first event together – taking the title without dropping a set, including a 6-3, 6-1 victory over Briton Emily Webley-Smith and Ekaterina Ovcharenko in the final.
Over in Egypt, James Story and Matthew Summers claimed the M15 Sharm El Sheikh doubles crown. The British third seeds came back from a set down in the final to beat Yurii Dzhavakian and Robert Strombachs 3-6, 7-5, 10-7 in an hour and 22 minutes.
Meanwhile in the States, Adam Jones won the M15 Ann Arbor doubles title with Tristan McCormick
Jones and McCormick sailed through to the final without dropping a set, before taking down Martin Borisiouk and Ryan Dickerson 3-6, 6-2, 10-1 to lift the title.
Harry Wendelken reached both the singles and doubles final at the M15 Grodzisk Mazowiecki but finished runner-up in both. He lost to Ireland’s Michael Agwi 6-0, 6-1 in the singles and then teaming up with fellow Brit Tom Hands, was defeated in the doubles 7-6(4), 6-1 against Jan Hrazdil and David Poljak.
Penney clinches double silverware
Andrew Penney secured both singles and doubles wheelchair titles at the same tournament for the fourth time this season as he dominated the ITF Futures Sibenik Open in Croatia.
The current British No.3 and top seed dropped just two games on his way to the men’s singles title, defeating the host nation’s Drazen Miksic 6-0, 6-0 and Anto Joskic 6-0, 6-2 before beating Austria’s eight-time Paralympian and former world No.3 Martin Legner 6-0, 6-0 in the final.
Penney had Legner on the same side of the net for the men’s doubles, the duo making a victorious debut as a partnership after powering through their semi-final against the Croatian-Hungarian pairing of Antonijo Arambasic and Ferenc Gabor Lelik 6-0, 6-0 and then beating Joskic and Ante Kolundija 6-3, 6-1.
