Ilkley Trophy – Day 3 Summary

The changeable British weather is at risk of becoming the star performer at this year’s Ilkley Trophy, taking place at the Ilkley Lawn Tennis and Squash Club this week. Today, again, rain halted play for much of the afternoon, before a burst of glorious sunshine in the evening helped the tournament organisers get through the majority of the day’s schedule.

First up on Centre Court was Mingge Xu, known to most people simply as Mimi, a 15-year-old who has been ranked as high as 25th on the ITF junior tour. She was up against solid Indian player Ankita Raina, twice Mimi’s age, and despite losing the first set 6-3, Xu fought back in the second set as the dark clouds approached, and took the set on a tiebreak thanks to some aggressive tennis just before the rain came down.

The delay clearly didn’t help Mimi’s sense of rhythm, as Raina was able to reset and return to the court some four hours later and clinch the deciding set 6-1 to put an end to Xu’s brave efforts on the Yorkshire grass.

During the four-hour rain delay, two women’s qualifying matches were selected to move indoors – one of which was the final qualifying round match of Talia Neilson-Gatenby, who had secured a huge comeback victory yesterday on the outside courts. While the relocation of the match allowed for an uninterrupted session, it was also without media or spectators, so it was a lonely straight-sets defeat for Talia, 6-3 7-5, against her Dutch opponent.

There were also two ladies awaiting their fate after failing to finish their matches yesterday, and they only managed to get finished after play resumed outside – 14-year-old Hannah Klugman played blindly well in the first eight games of the deciding set against Dutch veteran Lesley Kerkhove once it had resumed on Court 1, but lost her rhythm at just the wrong time while serving at 4-5 down, and was broken crucially to lose a match which had been exceptionally close. That being said, a narrow three-set defeat to a woman ranked close to the top 200 is an incredible result for the youngster, who clearly has far more to come in her career.

Over on Court 2, Sarah Beth Grey, having won the opening set 6-0 yesterday against Turkey’s Zeynep Sonmez, came out and won just two of the next fourteen games to go out 0-6 6-1 6-1 in what can only be described as a topsy-turvy encounter. Grey has now lost eight games on the trot.

The evening session was an extended one, with the first round of both the Women’s and the Men’s Singles kicking off on a beautiful clear evening and going on until around 9pm. Qualifier Charles Broom found himself in a fourth consecutive tiebreak in the first set against Gijs Brouwer on Court 3, but won it, and eventually found the breakthrough in the second set as well, securing a 7-6(5) 6-2 victory which takes him through to face Raul Brancaccio of Italy in the next round. Brancaccio beat British wildcard Johannus Monday 6-3 6-3 on Centre Court, with the 21-year-old Brit never really being given much of an opportunity to get into the game.

The result of the day from a British perspective was perhaps 16-year-old Isabelle Lacy’s brilliant comeback victory over former Wimbledon quarter-finalist Viktorija Golubic of Switzerland. Lacy dropped the first set 6-2, but dug deep and got back into the match, breaking serve to clinch the second set before holding her nerve at the business end of set three to clinch an unlikely victory.

British wildcard Sonay Kartal also pulled off an excellent result as the day came to a close – drawn against fourth seed Simona Waltert, Kartal raced to the first set 6-1 before breaking early in the second, and never looking back, serving up a bagel to go with that breadstick and winning 6-1 6-0 to reach the second round.

Sadly, wildcard Toby Samuel couldn't quite get past his first-round opponent late in the evening – he was up against Alex Bolt of Australia, and despite taking the first set 6-2, he was edged out by the 30-year-old 7-6(6) 7-5 in the last two sets, despite having chances to seal the game in the second. So, Charles Broom is thus far the only British male through to the second round, although Harry Wendelken is set to play his first-round match tomorrow.

Tomorrow’s weather looks to be the worst of the lot, with rain predicted throughout most of the morning and early afternoon – so it could well be a busy evening at ITLSC as the organisers race to get through the remains of the first round before Wednesday morning.