Jay Clarke wins fourth career ATP Challenger title in Skopje
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The latest from the British tenis stars as Jay Clarke once again featured amongst the title-winners on the ATP Challenger Tour.
Clarke back amongst Challenger champions
Britain’s Jay Clarke enjoyed a fantastic week at the Skopje Challenger in North Macedonia, winning the fourth ATP Challenger title of his career and first since 2022.
Coming into the tournament as the third seed, Clarke didn’t drop a set all week, finishing with a 6-2, 6-3 final win over Nerman Fatic in the final.
Clarke also saw his best win of the week in the semi-final where he knocked out top seed and world No.90 Hugo Dellien 7-6(4), 6-3.
The 26-year-old Brit has been in excellent form this season and has now won four singles titles – adding to ITF trophies in Santa Margherita di Pula, Chandigarh and Ahmedabad – and is now back inside the world’s top 200.
Brits enjoy strong runs ahead of Roland Garros
British No.2 Cam Norrie had his best result of the year so far making the semi-finals of the Geneva Open.
Ahead of Roland Garros, Norrie pulled together a series of impressive victories over Dominic Stricker, Tomas Mahac and Alexei Popyrin – however in the semis he was defeated by eventual champion Novak Djokovic 6-4, 6-7(6), 6-1.
Norrie opens up his account at Roland Garros with a togh match against former US Open champion Daniil Medvedev.
Meanwhile in Hamburg, Henry Patten, Joe Salisbury and Neal Skupski all made semi-final runs as well.
Patten and partner Harri Heliovaara were narrowly defeated by Andres Molteni and Fernando Romboli 1-6, 6-1, 12-10 to miss out on a place in the final.
Meanwhile, British duo Salisbury and Skupski were beaten by third seeds Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori 6-3, 6-1.
Maia Lumsden also enjoyed a semi-final run at the WTA 250 in Rabat with China's Qianhui Tang but lost out to Maya Joint and Oksana Kalashnikova 7-5, 7-5 in the final four.
Brooks clinches doubles crown in US
British doubles star Madeleine Brooks won her first title of the season at the W50 Pelham with Australian partner Petra Hule.
Brooks and Hule beat second seeds Alicia Herrero Linana and Anna Sinclair Rogers 6-1, 7-6(4) in the final.
Brooks is now ranked just outside the world’s top 100 in doubles and has five titles to her name since the start of last year.
Freya Christie also made the final of the W75 Kursumlijska with Kazakhstan’s Zhibek Kulambayeva but the duo lost out to Ayla Aksu and Anna Siskova 6-4, 6-2.
Stoiber makes ITF breakthrough
20-year-old Ranah Stoiber won her first professional singles title at the W15 Estepona last week, as the young Brit made her breakthrough on the ITF Tour.
In the final she faced fellow Brit Alice Gillan for the second time in two weeks, but this time got her victory with an epic 4-6, 7-6(5), 6-4 comeback.
Stoiber showed her resilience and fight throughout the week, including another win from a set down in the semi-finals against Adithya Karunaratne.
Elsewhere on the ITF Tour, Katy Dunne made the final of the W15 Monastir in only her third event of the year – losing out on the title to Ekaterina Khayrutdinova 6-1, 6-2.
Ewen Lumsden also made the final of the M15 Monastir but lost to Turkey’s Tuncay Duran 6-1, 6-3.
Bishop & Oosthuizen win wheelchar titles
Ruby Bishop won both the singles and doubles titles at the ITFFS Plock.
The British star saw off the third seed Donna Broek-Jansen in the semi-finals 6-3, 5-7, 6-1, before moving on to defeat Japan’s Seira Matsuoka 6-4, 6-3.
Bishop then teamed up with Broek-Jansen to clinch the doubles crown with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Latvian second seeds Diana Nikiforova and Zanete Vasaraudze-Gailite completing a hat-trick of doubles titles at the same tournament.
It marks Bishop’s first titles of the season to date.
Cornelia Oosthuizen also featured amongst the title-winners this week after a flawless performance at the ITF3S Padova. The 43-year-old didn't drop a set all week, finishing with a 6-4, 6-4 win over top seed Jinte Bos.
Oosthuizen lost in the doubles final with Germany's Katharina Kruger against Bos and Maayan Zikri 6-2, 6-2.
