Bahrain smiled kindly on us last week with two titles and three runners-up places.
And we've certainly started off well this week too, with special congrats to Bella Moen, taking out the 3rd seed, and Tommy Harrison who qualifed and then defeated the 7th seed:
Good effort by last week's star, Issey, against the top seed, but not to be.
Wildcard, Dan Abernethy puts out the 4th seed though.
Olivia Rook also took care of the 5th seed.
And following her dubs title last week, Aryana (born 2005) progresses nicely to the QFs, clocking up her first ITF singles points.
R2 BOYS:
(wc) Matteo FUSCHILLO (GBR) 6-4 5-7 6-4 Pierre Antoine TAILLEU (FRA)
(q) Tommy HARRISON (GBR) 6-4 6-4 Andrej JOVANOVIC (SRB)
Alexander KNOX JONES (GBR) [3] 6-3 6-0 Warit WANNAWITCHATE (THA)
Archie GRAHAM (GBR) [8] 4-6 6-3 6-2 Agriya YADAV (IND)
(wc) Daniel ABERNETHY (GBR) 7-6(4) 6-3 Mark Owen ENDLER (GER) [4]
Pablo TROCHU (FRA) [5] 6-2 6-3 Archie TURNER (GBR)
Liv Rook is another of those players who backs up the point about the importance of family and how the LTA needs (IMO) to be far wider in their investment/support scope to foster a broader base that then feeds into itself..
Her dad is a full-time tennis coach and, although he's not Liv's coach, he says he's her chief hitting partner. (As well as advisor etc if she wants it). Having unlimited, top class hitting is a real luxury for many GB players who really struggle to find someone of their level just to play with, on a regular basis (for free).
THere's a nice photo of her and Aryana with their winners' cups (the GB girls are on the right of the photo - Aryana is the dark-haired girl and Liv the fairer one), and with the boys' winners: