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21 - 29 June 2019

Nature Valley International

Devonshire Park

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Nature Valley International: O'Mara and Bambridge crowned Eastbourne doubles champions

  • 2019 WTA Premier logo
  • ATP 250 logo
  • 29/06/2018

  • Major Events

Jonny O'Mara and Luke Bambridge were crowned men's doubles champions in Eastbourne after they defeated fellow Brits Neal and Ken Skupski 7-5, 6-4.

The Nature Valley International marked their debut appearance in an ATP World Tour tournament and remarkably resulted to their first career title. 

The pair have been in fine form throughout the week, defeating Stuttgart champions Dom Inglot and Franko Skugor, top seeds Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah, and Edouard Roger-Vasselin and Robert Lindstedt en route to reaching the final. 

The win provides great momentum ahead of Wimbledon, where they will face defending champions Marcelo Melo and Lukasz Kubot in their opening round on Wednesday. 

Meanwhile, the singles finals are set with Caroline Wozniacki taking on Aryna Sabalenka for the women’s title, and Lukas Lacko and Misha Zverev lining up to contest the men’s title on Saturday.

Top seed Wozniacki had to dig deep against fourth seed Angelique Kerber as she was forced to save a match point, but she battled back to capture a 2-6, 7-6(4), 6-4 victory to take her through to her third Eastbourne final in ten visits to Devonshire Park.

Recording her 30th match victory of the season, Wozniacki improved her head-to-head record against Kerber to 7-8, to reach the 53rd final of her career: “I knew it was going to be difficult again out there today, but I got a little lucky in that second set and just kept my head down for the third one.

“I got lucky to break her there at 6-5. I saved a match point when we had a great rally and I managed to hit the corner on that match point.Then, in the tiebreaker, I started off aggressively and it went my way and I hit a few lines and it just kind of went from there.”

Sabalenka will bid for her maiden WTA Tour title after dispatching 2008 Eastbourne champion Agnieszka Radwanska 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 in the semi-finals. Starting the match with all guns blazing, the Belarusian suffered a temporary dip in form in the second set, before blasting her way out of trouble and into the first Premier level final of her career. 

The third woman from Belarus to reach the final at Eastbourne, Sabalenka said she was delighted with her performance so far during a week that’s seen her defeat three seeded opponents and record her first Top 10 victory (over world No.7 Karolina Pliskova).

In the opening men’s semi-final at the Nature Valley International, Lacko posted a confidence performance to earn his place in the second ATP final of his career, beating Marcos Cecchinato 6-3, 6-4. 

The world No.94, who scored the biggest win of his career this week, when he beat world No.11 Schwartzman in the second round, will face Zverev in the second final of the day after the German defeated Mikhail Kukushkin 7-6(9), 6-4. Zverev leads the head to head against Lacko 1-0 and will also be bidding for his first ATP World Tour title. 

Friday's women’s doubles semi-finals saw Irina-Camelia Begu and Mihaela Buzarnescu defeat Lyudmyla Kichenok and Ekaterina Makarova 4-6, 6-0, [10-6] to earn a finals berth against fourth seeds Gabriela Dabrowski and Yifan Xu, the winners over Su-wei Hsieh and Sabalenka, 6-7(4), 7-5, [13-11].

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