Sonay Kartal seals third title of the season while British doubles stars triumph across the globe
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It was a golden week in the world of British tennis with 18 British tennis players clinching silverware across the ATP Challenger, ITF and wheelchair tennis tours. Catch up with all of the latest news from the last week of British tennis.
Cash, Patten and Willis sweep up Challenger titles
Our British doubles stars enjoyed a dominant week on the ATP Challenger tour, with three trophies being picked up across three events.
Julian Cash teamed up with Robert Galloway once again to claim their second title of the year together at the BNP Paribas Primrose. The British, American duo dropped just one set en route to the title before capping off the week with a 6-3, 7-6(2) win over Quentin Halys and Nicolas Mahut.
Moving on to Italy where Henry Patten and Harri Heliovaara joined forces to take the Piemonte Open Intesa Sanpaolo crown.
After receiving a walkover in the first round, the recently crowned Grand Prix Hassan II champions came through back-to-back three set battles before easing to the title with a 6-3, 6-3 win over fellow Brit Neal Skupski and Andreas Mies - marking their third title of the year as a duo
Marcus Willis and Federico Agustin Gomez also tasted doubles delight at the KIA Tunis Open in Tunisia.
The 33-year-old Brit paired up with the Argentine where they reached the final. In a close clash against Patrik Rikl and Michael Vrbensky in the final, they came back from a set down to eventually seal the win, 4-6, 6-1, 10-6.
Hewett does the double in Rome
Alfie Hewett and Gordon Reid dominated on clay in another European capital, as Hewett won his second Internazionali BNL D’Italia singles title in Rome. This year’s tournament marked its first appearance on the Uniqlo Wheelchair Tour calendar since the pandemic, and has seen it be bumped up from an ITF 2 status to ITF 1.
The world No.1 secured three straight sets wins, the toughest of which was a 6-4,6-4 semi-final win over Reid, before rounding off the week with a 6-1, 6-1 win over Gustavo Fernandez.
He then partnered Reid to claim their fourth doubles title of 2024, the top seeds beating Joachim Gerard and Martin de la Puente 6-1, 6-4 to lift their 48th career title as a partnership.
Kartal seals third ITF singles titles
It was another winning week for Sonay Kartal who picked up her third ITF singles tile of the year at the W35 Monzon tournament.
The 22-year-old dropped just one set across the tournament as she closed out a near-flawless week in Spain by dispatching the Czech Republic’s Linda Klimovicova 6-1, 6-0.
The success continued to roll in with doubles stars also claiming victory on the ITF Tour. Madeleine Brooks and Sarah Beth Grey joined forces to bring home the W75 Kurume title, after securing a 6-4, 6-0 win over Japanese duo Momoko Kobori and Ayano Shimizu.
Meanwhile, Ella McDonald and Talia Neilson Gatenby won their maiden title together at the W15 Monastir after they overcame Jiayu Xu and Ying Zhang 6-4, 6-2.
Clarke continues his momentum while all-British teams triumph
Elsewhere on the ITF World Tennis Tour, Jay Clarke added a fifth doubles title of the season to his fast-expanding collection at the M25 Reggio Emilia, where he competed alongside Kai Wehnelt.
Clarke has certainly impressed so far this clay court season, with his latest trophy being his sixth on the surface already this year across the singles and doubles game.
Clarke and Wehnelt faced four all-Italian pairings during the week and caused one final upset on Italian soil when they beat Andrea Arnaboldi and Federico Arnabold 5-7, 6-2, 10-8 to etch their names on the trophy.
It was a week to remember for Liam Hignett who won his first professional doubles title at the M25 Vic where he teamed up with compatriot James Mackinlay. The all-British duo battled past Imanol Lopez Morillo and Richard Zusman 7-5, 7-6(1) in the final.
Charles Broom and Hamish Stewart completed the set of British champions this week as they defeated Denis Istomin and Evgeny Karlovskiy 6-4, 6-4 in the M25 Kachreti final.
Penney retains titles in Switzerland
19-year-old Andrew Penney retained his men’s singles and doubles title at the 27 Bulle Indoors in Switzerland, earning straight sets wins over Canada’ s Thomas Venos, Poland’s Jakub Dominik Bukala and Morocco’s Lhaj Boukartacha before defeating Josef Riegler 6-7(6), 6-2, 6-2 for his first title of 2024. Penney and Venos led Bukala and Kamil Fabisiak 7-5 after the first set of the men’s doubles final, at which stage the Polish top seeds retired.
Meanwhile, Lucy Shuker came within touching distance of her fourth women’s doubles title of the season at the Fundacion Emilio Sanchez Vicario ITF 2 tournament in Madrid, where the British No.1 and Emmanuele Morch of France were edged out 4-6, 6-3, (11-9) in the final by Macarena Cabrillana and Saki Takamuro.
Shuker also lost out to Cabrillana in the singles semis, having beaten Morch 6-3, 3-6, 7-5 in the quarter-finals. The Frenchwoman had earlier narrowly denied Abbie Breakwell of a place in the quarter-finals against Shuker after edging their first-round contest 2-6, 6-2, 6-4.
