A packed summer of tennis at the Lexus Nottingham Tennis Centre gets underway this week, as main draw action commences in the first of back-to-back ITF World Tennis Tour events forming the Lexus British Pro Series Nottingham.

In the women’s competition, an ITF W35 event, Lily Miyazaki is the highest ranked British player in the singles draw of seven with direct entry. Miyazaki is joined by Emily Appleton – who made her WTA singles main draw debut in Nottingham in 2024 – and Victoria Allen, who hails from nearby Derbyshire and is looking to continue her rapid rise up the rankings, after rising over 800 places in the world rankings last year to enter the world’s top 500 for the first time.

In the men’s ITF M25 event, 2023 Wimbledon boys singles champion Henry Searle leads the British charge as number three seed, with Anton Matusevich and Emile Hudd joining Searle as three of the top six seeds in Nottingham. In total, ten Brits have direct entry, with more hoping to join them from qualifying, giving plenty of chance for a home victory.

Current entrants for the singles draws this week are as follows:

Women: Lily Miyazaki, Katy Dunne, Amelia Rajecki, Victoria Allen, Emily Appleton, Alice Gillan, Esther Adeshina

Men: Henry Searle, Anton Matusevich, Emile Hudd, Finn Murgett, Patrick Brady, Marcus Walters, Ewen Lumsden, Ali Habib, Toby Martin, Luke Hooper

Entries for next week’s event will be sent out prior to the main draw getting underway.

These events come ahead of the Lexus Nottingham Open, the combined WTA 250 and ATP CH125 tournament which returns to the Lexus Nottingham Tennis Centre in just under two months’ time and will feature some of the world’s best players battling it out. If you are interested in covering the action from the Lexus Nottingham Tennis centre or previewing this summer’s tournament over the next fortnight, please email joshua.dawson@lta.org.uk

In other news, Nottingham’s Freya Christie and Essex’s Eden Silva triumphed in the southwest London sunshine to claim the women’s doubles title at the Lexus British Pro Series Roehampton at the National Tennis Centre.

With both players’ last doubles titles coming in 2024, the number three seeds came into the competition with a good chance of breaking that duck, and a convincing 6-0 6-1 win in round one gave them an almost perfect start. However, the Brits had to battle for the rest of the week, coming through two match tiebreaks in the quarter finals and semi finals – the latter a win against the number two seeds Alicia Dudeney and Amelia Rajecki – to set up a final against number one seeds Emily Appleton and Slovakia’s Viktoria Hruncakova.

It looked as though the number one seeds would live up to their billing as favourites, as Appleton and Hruncakova raced into a 4-1 lead in the first set. However, Christie and Silva fought back to get back on serve, and went on to win the first set via a tiebreak. The number one seeds showed their quality in the second set, securing an early break of serve and not letting it slip, taking the final to a match tiebreak. After a nervous opening with both pairs trading minibreaks, a run of four points in a row for Christie and Silva opened up a lead that they would not relinquish, going on to claim the title with a 7-6(7) 3-6 10-6 win.

After the match, Freya said, “It feels great. We’ve played a few tournaments together now, and haven’t quite got the win yet, so it’s our first win together. This one feels really special, and especially being at home as well – it’s that extra cherry on top.” Eden spoke of the impact of playing at home, adding, “Having our best friends, watching as well is always really nice, because a lot of the time we’re traveling and we’re on our own; we don’t really have a whole load of support on the road, so it is nice to have that, and I think that definitely did help us get over the line.”

*Main image @the_lta Freya Christie and Eden Silva with their winners medals.