By Owen Morgan
Welsh tennis star Evan Hoyt goes into this week’s $25,000 ITF World Tennis Tour event in Glasgow on the back of winning a doubles title win in Devon.
The right-hander partnered fellow Brit Luke Johnson to victory in the final of the $25,000 ITF event in Barnstaple at the weekend.
Hoyt and Johnson beat another all British pairing of Julian Cash and Andrew Watson in an exciting final which went to a deciding tie break.
Cash and Watson took the first set, but Hoyt and Johnson fought back to take the second 7-6 to force a tie break decider.
The Welshman and his partner clinched the match and the title by winning the decider 9-6.
Hoyt will again be partnered by Johnson at Glasgow’s Scotstoun Leisure Centre, where their challenge begins on Tuesday (February 19) against the British pairing of Scott Duncan and Connor Thomson.
RESULT🎾🏴| Well done to @HoytEvan and @luke_johnson94 who won the men’s doubles at the $25,000 event in Barnstaple this week. This is already Ev’s second ITF World Tennis Tour doubles title of 2019! 🙌💪 #RedRoar pic.twitter.com/vrQKbymx58
— Tennis Wales (@tenniswales) February 16, 2019
In the singles, Hoyt will start his tournament with a first round match against Yannick Mertens, of Belgium.
The 24-year-old has been in excellent form since the turn of the year. The win in Devon was his second doubles title of 2019, having already won the $15,000 Monastir event in Tunisia earlier this month.
In partnership with Skander Mansouri, of Tunisia, the duo cruised through the rounds without dropping a set.
In the final, they faced the Ecuadorian/Brazilian pairing of Diego Hidalgo and Gilbert Soares Klier Junior, who proved to be the trickiest opponents of the tournament.
Hoyt and Mansouri were taken to a tiebreak in the first set, however the second seeds dominated losing only one point. In the second set they broke serve to take the title 7-6(1), 6-4.
The Llanelli man also partnered Great Britain’s Lloyd Glasspool to the final of the Tucson, Arizona, $25,000 event in January, where they were eventually beaten on a tie breaker by Aziz Dougaz, of Tunisia and Manuel Guinard, of France.
Hoyt has also been in good form in the singles draw this year.
At Monastir he reached the final without dropping a set, but was eventually defeated 4-6, 6-3 by Felipe Meligeni Rodrigues Alves, of Brazil.
Meanwhile, in Barnstaple, he produced an excellent display to beat former world top 60 player Igor Sijsling, of the Netherlands 7-6, 6-4.
And he was well-placed against top seed Antoine Escoffier in the next round after taking the first set 6-1, but eventually slipped to defeat over three sets.
Despite this form, the Welshman has dropped dramatically in the ATP World standings due to the new controversial and complicated rankings system which has been introduced this year.
Since the start of 2019, players only earn ATP ranking points at the higher level Tour and Challenger level events, or reach the latter stages of ITF $25K events.
Those going out before the finals at ITF $25K events and who are competing in $15K tournaments no longer get any ATP rankings points.
However, those competing at 25K and 15K level will get ITF ranking points and thus be ranked in the new ITF system.
At the end of 2018, those ATP points earned by players at the lower-level events essentially vanished, while the new ITF rankings were formulated instead. It is common for players to have both an ATP and ITF ranking.
In Hoyt’s case he has dropped to 494 in the ATP singles rankings, compared to a high of 414 last year. Under the new system he now also has an ITF World Singles ranking of 89.
In doubles, he is now placed 356 in the ATP rankings, compared to last year’s high of 244. His new ITF World Tennis Doubles Ranking is 14.
The new rankings have attracted widespread opposition in the tennis world.
Even the first player to be announced as the new ITF number one has been critical of the system, claiming it has brought “nothing positive” to the game.
Germany’s Peter Heller is ranked as the 589th best player on the planet according to the ATP leaderboard, but he rose to the summit of the ITF’s new rankings system after reaching the final of $25K event in Nussloch, Germany.
The man who was rated 273 in the ATP standings last year said: ‘”For me it was tough because last year at the end of the season I think I was 270 in the ATP rankings and now I dropped to I think 590 and this was a bit tough because if the old ranking would have stayed the same I would have had the chance to play the Grand Slams.
“So for me this way was a bit frustrating. But yeah I have to deal with it.”
The changes were brought in following a survey which raised concerns regarding prize money, with just 336 men and 253 women able to break even before even factoring in coaching costs.
Feedback suggested a desire for greater rewards for successful players and reduced costs to compete. The ITF is also keen to provide more meaning to the junior rankings by giving them a direct ‘bridge’ to the professional game.
A petition campaigning against the new ITF World Tennis Tour, created by 22-year-old Canadian player Maria Patrascu, has gathered more than 11,500 signatures.