As usual next years British Tour starts this year with the Tier 2 event at Graves, Sheffield. Last years leader board winner and masters runner up Sean Hodkin is the top seed for this event.
The first Premier event of the year starts in Loughborough today. There is increased prize money at Premier events with the winner getting £1,500 and the runner-up £850. Wildcard entries to the main draw and quali draw of ITF events are also on offer.
Top seeds include: George Loffhagen; Luke Johnson; Isaac Stoute; Jonathan Binding; Nico Rosenzweig; George Houghton; Sean Hodkin and Mike Shaw
Brilliant to see one of our top college boys, Julian Cash, back from surgery and playing well - he put out Luke Johnson, approx ATP 700, today, 7-5 in the third.
The rest all went according to ranking, although George Houghton needed a third set TB to get past Rob Carter (who is obviously better than unranked, anyway).
In terms of other seeds, Nico Rosenzweig only just got past a qualifier too, Millen Hurrion, and plays Oliver Okwonko (born 2000) next who impressed me at Surbiton and should, I think, benefit hugely from US college tennis.
Binding needed three sets to get past Joe Tyler who many people rate. And Mike Shaw also needed three to beat George Foster.
A good standard of indigenous tennis, I think the standards improved over the last 5 years or perhaps I just know the players better.
Lots of names there well known to us through junior ITF tennis and then futures suggesting lots of coaching from a young age (and Sean H) It will be very interesting to see how Henry Pattern does after his (ITA national doubles win) very successful end to 2018 in US College tennis.
He dominates a relatively week conference but has had national succcess of the sort we last saw on the men's side with Lloyd Glasspool but he had been recruited to an elite college programme at Texas. That is a good win against Jonnie who is one of our better Ex UK college players with a fair amount of ITF experience.
Sean continues his mopping up of British Tour events, beating George Loff along the way. Julian needed three sets to defeat George Houghton. Isaac went to a third set TB against Josh Rose.
A very good start to the year for Sean, a number of players here beat him last year, Issac Stoute, Jonnie Binding bit he looks to have been pretty dominant here, difficult to know how match fit Julian is but he has beaten some decent players so presumably not far off his best.
The latest Tier 1 event is under way at Bath and includes a surprise (?) entry from Liam Broady! Another quality field including the likes of Hodders, Ryan Peniston, Andrew Watson, Luke Johnson, Sammmm Butler and Bob Carter.
Liam and Ryan are the first winners today, booking their place in the QF.