Claiming back-to-back titles at the third and final UTR Pro Tennis Series event held at the State Tennis Centre in Perth, University of Tennessee graduate and former 18/U National Champion Scott Jones has wrapped up a successful campaign winning 11 from 12 matches across the three staged series.
Contesting WA State League player and former Vanderbilt University college student, Rhys Johnson in the Final of the third UTR Pro Tennis Series event, Jones started slowly with a 2-6 loss in the first set. Recovering quickly, Jones went on to secure the match and back-to-back UTR titles with a convincing 6-1 second set win and 10-2 win in the match tie break. The final score resulted in a 2-6, 6-1, 10-2 win for Jones.
The impressive 11:1win loss ratio and back-to-back titles, proves the dominance of Jones who lost just one match across the entire series to Grand Slam Champion John Peers, in the Final of the first event at the beginning of July.
Grounded in Perth since returning from college at the beginning of the year, Jones has relished the opportunity to train and play alongside a host of WA’s top performing professional players including John Peers, Tristan Schoolkate, Maddison Inglis and Astra Sharma.
The former Cottesloe State League player and 2016 Australian 18/u National Champion says he’s thrilled by his performance across the three events and says that he’s happy to continue to work hard and build on his game here in Perth whilst waiting to see what unfolds with the pending return of the professional men’s circuit.
‘I’ve continued to build on my game across the series and I’m really happy with the overall result,’
‘It feels good to get all of those wins. I really found my game as I went on and I’m happy to get that many wins out of that many matches. It’s really pleasing,’
‘Everything’s so up in the air at the moment so I’ll just keep training hard and be ready for when everything comes back,’
‘It’s been really good to be at home after being away (at college) for so long. We’ve got such a good training environment here in WA and everyone seems to really bring out the best in each other,’
‘I’ve enjoyed being at home with the family and I’ve really enjoyed the opportunity to play some golf and hit the beach a lot which is something I really missed while I was at college in Tennessee,’ Jones said.
Jones was the 2016 Australian 18/u National Champion and experienced his first taste of Grand Slam action at the 2017 Australian Open having earnt a wildcard entry in to the main draw.
Perth Tournament Director, Loretta Hughes said she’d been thrilled with the success of the UTR Pro Tennis Series in Perth.
“It’s been wonderful to be a part of the return of professional tennis in and to provide such a wonderful opportunity for both our professional and emerging players to compete at such a high level,”
“Maintaining match fitness and competition readiness is critical for our professional and emerging players based here in Perth and the UTR Pro Tennis Series events has been a key role in ensuring our players are in a strong position to return high level competition when the time is right,” Hughes said.
The UTR Pro Tennis Series features events in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth, and provides players with the opportunity to compete for $450,000 in prize money following the months-long suspension of the international tours due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Final Scores & Event Information:
What is a UTR? Universal Tennis Rating (UTR) is an international tennis rating system that connects millions of tennis players around the world to help them find better matches locally. UTR reflects a player’s current skill level based on head-to-head match scores, and rates all players across age, gender and nationality on the same 16-point scale. Every player can have a UTR – from the pros to juniors to social tennis players.
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