Maia Lumsden wins Lexus Nottingham Open with Harriet Dart
Scotland’s number one Maia Lumsden and doubles partner Harriet Dart were crowned women’s doubles champions at the Lexus Nottingham Open after securing a straight sets victory in the final.
They faced a seeded duo for the third consecutive match when they took on second seeds Chan Hao-ching & Shuko Aoyama, producing a confident display to win 6-3, 6-4 in one hour and 20 minutes.
The British duo broke their opponents four times across the match and staved off a late comeback from the Taiwanese-Japanese pair in the second set to clinch the WTA 250 title.
It was a third final for Lumsden and Dart together – they won the W100 Fujairah trophy at the end of January – but their first at WTA tour level as a partnership.
“Thank you to my partner Harriet,” said Lumsden. “It’s been an amazing week, to get our first tour title together. We lost the final in Birmingham a couple of weeks ago, so it's great to go a step further. I always love playing with you and hopefully we can keep it going at Wimbledon.
“It’s so nice to play on this court in front of so many people all week - I think the stands were full every day in our match, so it's such a nice feeling as that doesn’t happen every week, especially in doubles, so thank you for coming.”
Fearnley reaches Ilkley final
The previous week, Jacob Fearnley reached his second career grass-court final as he was pipped to the Lexus Ilkley Open men’s singles title.
He lost out to Yunchaokete Bu as the Chinese star delivered a composed performance to win 6-3, 7-6(1) in one hour and 40 minutes.
While the Scot was disappointed not to cap off a strong week with the trophy, there were plenty of positives to take from reaching his first ATP Challenger final of the season after struggling with injuries earlier in the year.
“It was an amazing week,” Fearnley said. “It was my first time playing singles here and I really felt the love from the fans. The tournament is fantastic and I’m looking forward to coming back for many years.
“Congrats to Bu - I’ve played him a few times and know how difficult he is. Today, he had my number. He served incredibly well and played the big points better.”
Top 100 win for Stewart
Hamish Stewart enjoyed his first-ever win over a top 100 player in qualifying for the Lexus Eastbourne Open.
He beat Emilio Nava to reach the final stage in his bid to reach a maiden ATP World Tour event, but lost out to Aleksandar Vukic at the last hurdle.
