ILKLEY Lawn Tennis & Squash Club may have lost their day’s grace in terms of matches, but are still confident of finishing the Lexus Ilkley Trophy on schedule.
Rain has greatly hampered play for two of the first three days, with some qualifying matches in the $100,000 ITF Women’s World Tour being finished indoors last night.
They have largely been played indoors in a case of needs must, while the men in the €148,625 ATP Challenger Tour event are further ahead in the sense that they are playing first-round matches today but have mostly been confined to the grass courts.
No British men made it through qualifying, but two have succeeded among the women - left-hander Ella McDonald from Preston and Ranah Akua Stoiber, 19, who is taking the step up from elite level junior competition.
McDonald, 18, was a set up when the match was transferred from the grass courts and completed the job indoors, defeating Uzbekistan’s Nigina Abduraimova 6-2, 6-4.
Stoiber’s victory was harder earned as she took 2hr 30min to beat Australia’s Talia Gibson 5-7, 7-6 (1), 6-4.
These victories put the Britons into the main draw - the last 32 of the singles - where McDonald will face Arianne Hartono of the Netherlands.
Stoiber, who reached the girls’ singles quarter-finals at Wimbledon and the semi-finals of the Australian Open last year, and the US Open girls’ singles quarter-finals in 2022, will play 16-year-old Renata Jamrichova of the Slovak Republic, who won the French Open girls’ singles a matter of weeks ago.
Also in action are the five British women who went direct into the main draw - Hannah Klugman, Amarni Banks, Yuriko Lily Miyazaki, Mingge Xu and former semi-finalist Sonay Kartal.
Kartal, who reached the last four at Ilkley in 2022, and Xu face qualifiers Destanee Aiava (Australia) and Laniana Tararudee (Thailand) respectively.
Miyazaki meets Romania’s experienced Elana-Gabriela Ruse, while Klugman faces France’s Chloe Paquet, and Banks plays second seed Mai Hontama (Japan).
Sadly, 24-year-old Londoner Lauryn John-Baptiste will not be joining the septet in the main draw, after she was beaten 6-3, 2-6, 6-2 in the final qualifying round of the women's singles by Maya Joint of the United States.
Blonde 19-year-old Felix Gill was beaten in the only ATP Challenger main draw match to finish on grass yesterday, bowing out 6-3, 6-7 (3), 6-1 to Dominic Stricker in a fierce battle of left-handers on Court Three.
Three other Britons are in men’s action today - wildcards Arthur Fery and Ryan Peniston, and Charles Broom.
The latter is on Centre Court against Kazakhstan’s Mikhail Kukushkin, while Fery is on Court One against Croatia’s Duje Aidukovic.
Peniston is on Court Four against Lukas Klein, of the Slovak Republic.
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