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Welcome to the latest edition of the Australian file, your weekly look at the week in tennis – from an Aussie perspective.
With less than two weeks to go until Wimbledon all eyes were on Halle, Queens and Birmingham as the grass season continued.
Here is a round-up of what happened.
ATP
This week was all about one South Australian saying goodbye to one of his favourite tournaments.
Lleyton Hewitt, with a first round loss to Kevin Anderson, would play his final match at the Queens club as a professional player.
Hewitt, a four time winner at the event, would win the first set and have a match point before falling away in the final set. It was a disappointing way to end a fabulous career at Queens.
16 years, 4 times a champion. @lleytonhewitt leaves Queen's Club for the final time to a standing ovation #bbctennis pic.twitter.com/33TmyAB7gE
— BBC Tennis (@bbctennis) June 15, 2015
Hewitt wasn’t the only Aussie player in Queens, with the Special Ks also in the event.
Nick Kyrgios would lose to the French Open champion, Stan Wawrinka, in straight sets. The Canberra youngster struggled with fatigue during the match and has opted to not play anymore events until Wimbledon.
Thanasi Kokkinakis was the only Aussie to win in Queens as he defeated Jeremy Chardy in the opening round. He would lose to Gilles Simon in the second round.
In Halle, Bernard Tomic was the only player in the main draw. He lost to American Steve Johnson in the opening round.
It was a similar story in doubles, with no Australians making the second round in either ATP event.
WTA
Just one WTA event was on this week as the field headed to Birmingham.
Three Australians were in the main draw with Jarmila Gajdosova and Ajla Tomljanovic losing in the opening round.
Casey Dellacqua won her opening match against Lauren Davis before losing to Jelena Jankovic in the second round.
In a similar story to the ATP events, no Aussies won in doubles in the WTA event in Birmingham.
ATP Challenger
Five ATP Challengers were on last week with another grass event being held in Ilkley in the north of England.
The focus for the Aussies was on that event with no Australians in action in the other events in Blois, Perugia, Fergana or Poprad Tatry.
All up seven Australians were involved with four in qualifying.
Two of those, Alex Bolt and Luke Saville, would make the main draw to join Matt Ebden, John Millman and John-Patrick Smith.
Another Aussie, Jason Kubler, tried to play on grass for the first time in three years with his knee problems.
Unfortunately for him, because of a rain delay, he was forced to play on a hard court.
Impressively, as he can’t play on hard courts, he won a set against Italian Matteo Donati.
In the main draw, two Aussies faced each other, as John Millman battled Matt Ebden.
Ebden, who has won 7 out of last 8 matches on grass, was too strong for Millman as he won 6-1 6-4.
The Western Australian won another three matches, all in straight sets, to make the final for the second week in a row.
He faced Denis Kudla once again, after winning the title in Surbiton in three sets over him, but fell short of a second straight title.
Ebden lost 6-3 6-4 to the American.
On Saturday, before the final, Wimbledon officially gave Ebden a wildcard into the event.
Thank you very much to everyone at the All England Club @Wimbledon – looking forward to The Championships #Wimbledon pic.twitter.com/GRkTwM8nuk
— Matt Ebden (@mattebden) June 21, 2015
He joins Lleyton Hewitt who was also given a wildcard.
ITF
Plenty of Aussies played in the 39 ITF events held over the past week around the world.
Leading the charge was Bernard Tomic’s little sister, Sara.
After making the final of the corresponding event last week in Egypt, the Queenslander went one better this week, by taking out the 10,000 Sharm El Sheikh event.
From the quarter final stage, to the final, Tomic would lose just 11 games in three matches.
It is her first ever ITF singles title and continues her impressive form over the last two months. The win will move her into the top 700 in the world.
There was also success for Sally Peers at the 10,000 Alkmaar event in the Netherlands.
She would team up with Sandra Zaniewska in the doubles to win the title. It is the Victorians 11th title in doubles.
On the men’s side there was also success in doubles, with Brad Mousley victorious in Turkey.
He would team up with Tuna Altuna to win his third doubles title on the ITF circuit.
The South Australian would almost sweep the week in Turkey but fell short in the singles final.
In his first ever final, he would win just one game, against his Latvian opponent.
In Serbia Aleksandar Vukic almost won his first doubles title by making the final of the ITF event in Valjevo.
Other notable results included quarter final appearances in singles for Gavin Van Peperzeel and Marc Polmans in Italy and Slovenia respectively.
Rankings
Bernard Tomic remains Australia’s highest ranked male player but moves down two spots to 26.
The biggest mover of the week was Jeremy Beale, who moved 471 spots to 966 in the world after his final appearance in Mozambique.
Brad Mousley, after his quarter final appearance in Turkey, moved 332 spots in the world to 1429.
Sam Stosur remains Australia’s highest ranked player at 22 in the world. The biggest mover was Sara Tomic who cracked the top 800 for the first time after her final appearance in Egypt the week before. Sally Peers, who was once 145 in the world, is now 562 after moving up 68 spots from last week.
This week
The grass season continues as players visit Nottingham and Eastbourne this week.
Qualifying also begins for Wimbledon with plenty of Australians involved. A full wrap of that will be in next week’s edition.
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