Lexus Ilkley Open 2025: Tristan Schoolkate beats Britain’s Jack Pinnington Jones in men’s final

Schoolkate rallied back to defeat the 22-year-old British star 6-7(8), 6-4, 6-3 in two hours and 35 minutes to become the new Ilkley champion.

Pinnington Jones led by a set and a break at 3-1, 30-0 in the second set but the seventh seed fought back to get his fourth comeback win of the week.

This is the Australian’s third ATP Challenger title of his career and second of the season after lifting the trophy in Brisbane back in February.

“It’s phenomenal – if you’d have told me at the start of the week I’d be standing here as the winner, I’d be pumped. I’m obviously really happy with the result.

“It wasn’t the prettiest of matches – conditions aren’t easy, it’s different every day, finals are tough too. I was just trying to maximise and get the most out of today and play as well as we could. It was good to get through and I tried my hardest.

“Hopefully Jack still wants to take me to Nottingham – he offered to drive us!”

Britain’s Pinnington Jones - who is supported by the LTA Pro Transition Programme - was competing in his first ATP Challenger Tour singles final in only his second tournament since leaving college this year.

He has spent the last few seasons competing for Texas Christian University (TCU) in the NCAA and was part of the 2024 National Championships winning team alongside now ATP top 50 player, Jacob Fearnley.

The young Briton will now head from West Yorkshire to the Lexus Nottingham Open for another ATP Challenger event on the grass. Last summer, Pinnington Jones defeated former world No.8 and TCU alum Cam Norrie at the Lexus Nottingham Centre.

“It’s tough to say it now but it has been a really good week,” the Brit said after the match. “If you’d have told me I would make the final when I arrived here on Friday I would have signed up for that.

“It’s been such a cool experience for me, this is one of the highest level tournaments that I’ve played so to get such great support has been really cool.

“It’s about getting more experience and finding my feet at this level. I’ll keep going, it’s all part of the journey, I’m still pretty young so I’m going to take it week by week and keep going.”

Pinnington Jones showed his character and resilience in the opening set after finding himself an early break down to force the Aussie to a tie-break and eventually take the lead on his fourth set point.

Things seemed to be going from strength-to-strength for the Briton after he got a slice of luck on a shanked lob to move 3-1 in front in the second.

However, having taken such a commanding lead, Pinnington Jones started to tighten up and couldn’t get his serve going. Schoolkate dispatched a return winner to break back before reeling off four straight games before serving out the second set.

It was a nervy start to the decider with five consecutive breaks of serve. Once he got the first hold, Schoolkate looked destined to go on and take the title. Serving to stay in the match on championship point, Pinnington Jones hit his seventh double fault to bring the match to a close.

Top seeds Diego Hidalgo and Patrik Trhac took home the men’s doubles title yesterday coming through a match tie-break against Britain’s Charles Broom and Ben Jones.

Hidalgo and Trhac held off the British comeback to win 6-3, 6-7(8), 10-7 in an hour and 37 minutes.

This was their first title together as a team and it marks 31 pro level doubles trophies for Hidalgo.