For the second time in two weeks, Bournemouth’s West Hants Club has played host to an ITF Pro Mens Circuit event after welcoming the Aegon British Tour last week and the Aegon GB Pro-Series over the past seven days.
The venue has a proven track record of successfully hosting these types of event and is deservedly recognised as one of the best Tennis centres in the UK.
On the club’s outdoor clay courts, there was plenty of top draw action to choose from and plenty of upsets in the men’s singles draw. Three of the top four seeds failed to reach the quarter-finals and only one of the top eight seeds managed to get through to the semi-finals.
Great Britain’s Dan Cox, seeded sixth, was the only seed to reach the last four and a marathon 7-6, 3-7, 7-5 win there against New Zealand’s Cameron Norrie saw him into the final. Cox, who played in the first round of Wimbledon in 2011, was up against Borna Coric of Croatia in the final.
Coric had previously knocked out the eighth seed Ivorra Alcaraz in the first round and the second seed Alessandro Bega in the quarter finals, whilst not dropping a set en route to the last two. The final was a close affair with Cox starting marginally the brighter player after edging the first set on a tie-break 7-6(4).
The Croat struck back in the second after another close set taking it 6-4 to level things up. With momentum swinging in his favour, Coric edged ahead in the third set and kept his cool to win it 6-3, sealing his tournament victory.
The women’s draw stuck more to the script as top seed Jade Windley, Great Britain, claimed the tournament victory with a dominant set of performances. She dropped just two sets on her way to the title and beat the third and seventh seeds en route to the win. In the final, she showed great resilience by coming from a set down to win 6-7(2), 6-4, 6-2 against Sviatlana Pirazhenka, seeded seventh.
There was a victory for Somerset’s Richard Mabb in the men’s doubles as he and partner Neal Skupski came through a tough match in the final to claim the title. Mabb and Skupski were playing as the top seeds in the draw and were forced into a deciding champion’s tie-break in the final after splitting the first two sets with opponents Jack Carpenter and Ashley Hewitt, fourth seeds. The number one seeds kept their cool and took the decider comfortably 10-3 to complete the win.
Women’s singles champion Windley had a week to remember as she put her stamp on the tournament with another victory in the doubles. She and partner Anna Fitzpatrick, also of Great Britain, survived an early scare in the draw, winning on a champion’s tie-break in the quarter-finals, before crusing to the tournament victory with a 6-4, 6-1 victory over third seeds Elyne Boeykens and Karolina Wlodarczak.
After successfully hosting a tournament of this size, the West Hants Club will surely be looking to push on with regards to welcoming larger events on to its courts in the not too distant future.
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By Harry Lund