Norrie lifts third ATP title in Delray Beach as British stars claim 10 trophies last week
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Cam Norrie lifted his third ATP title at the Delray Beach Open this weekend after defeating second seed Reilly Opelka 7-6(1), 7-6(4) in the final.
Playing in his eighth ATP final, British No.1 Norrie shone in the biggest moments against the big serving American. Norrie didn’t face a break point throughout the match and showed his quality when it mattered most in the decisive tie-breaks.
The victory capped off an impressive week, which saw Norrie defeat three home favourites, including Sebastian Korda, whom he lost to at the Australian open in January.
After the match, Norrie reflected on a tough battle in Florida: “The tie-breaks I played extremely aggressively, the second one especially.
“I managed to put a couple of balls away and I was reading the play great. I'm super happy to get the win and beat a guy like Reilly, who is confident and playing well and won (in Dallas) last week.
Norrie now moves up to equal his career high ranking at World No.12.
Skupski wins third title of the year
Neal Skupski and Wesley Koolhof’s dominant start to the season continued in Doha last week as they won their third trophy in two months at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open.
Skupski and Koolhof added to their titles in Melbourne and Adelaide with a 7-6(4), 6-1 win over Rohan Bopanna and Denis Shapovalov in the final.
The win takes their record to 16-2 on the season after having only joined forces in January this year.
Draper rises into top 200 with Forli title
Jack Draper made it two ATP Challenger titles in 2022 after winning his second singles trophy in Forli last week.
In doing so, Draper became the second youngest Brit to win two Challenger titles - second only to Andy Murray in 2005.
The rising star dropped one set in five matches to claim the title, finishing with a 6-1, 6-2 victory over Tim Van Rijthoven in the final.
Draper, who is supported by the LTA Pro Scholarship Programme, has now reached a new career high ranking of 162. The 20-year-old will stay in Italy compete at the fifth edition of the event this year.
More success on home-soil
Five of this week’s ten international titles came from events staged by the LTA in Britain, as part of a move to provide more opportunities for British players to compete and win on home soil.
Lucy Shuker will return to a career high ranking of World No.5 this week after she won the singles title at the Bolton Indoor ITF 2 Wheelchair Tennis Tournament.
Shuker defeated both the fourth and fifth seeds on her way to the final, where she was due to face her doubles partner Dana Matthewson, who was forced to pull out with injury.
Greg Slade won his first ITF 2 title in Bolton this weekend after he and Andy Lapthorne beat Bryan Barten and David Wagner 3-6, 7-5, 10-6 in the quad doubles final. Read the full report (link) from Bolton.
Meanwhile in Scotland, Alastair Gray and Sonay Kartal claimed back-to-back singles titles in ITF events at the M25 and W25 Glasgow – the fourth international ranking tournaments staged so far this year for both women and men as part of the new LTA Performance Competitions Calendar for 2022.
Both Gray and Kartal have risen up the rankings this week due to their victories at Shrewsbury and Birmingham last week - Gray reached World No.369, while Kartal is into the top 600 for the first time at No.532. They will rise still higher once the points from Glasgow are added on.
Aidan McHugh – who, like Draper, is supported by the Pro Scholarship Programme – also tasted success, winning the men’s doubles crown with Gijs Brouwer. Check out our Glasgow round-up article here.
Other British champions last week
- Sam Murray Sharan (with Mariam Bolkvadze) - W60 Altenkirchen
- Blu Baker (with Jesse Witten) - M15 Naples
BACK THE BRITS
For a full round-up of the latest British results and wins, as well as an update on where the Brits are playing this week – head to our new Player Tracker on Fan Zone.
