Hoyt Boosts World Rankings After Reaching Final In Portugal

Evan Hoyt was beaten by the No1 seed Fred Gil in the quarter-finals of the ITF Portugal F16 Futures tournament this week.

The Welsh No 1 was seeded at No 8 for the competition in Lisbon, but found the home favourite too strong as he went down 6-4, 6-4. He beat Portugal’s Bernardo Saraiva (6-3, 6-3) and Chile’s Michel Vernier (6-4, 1-6, 6-4) to reach the last eight.

He also won one round in the men’s doubles with fellow Brit Finn Bass, beating the Portuguese / Brazilian pairing of Pedro Rodrigues and Alfonso Salgado (6-3, 6-2), but then retired in the quarter-finals.

It has been a season of consistency for the 23-year-old Mexican-born, Llanelli-raised racket player, who has finally fought back to the top of his game after undergoing surgery. His year started in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, in April, where he reached the quarter-finals in the singles and won the doubles title with American Dusty Boyer.

In Wisla, Poland, the following month he went to the final four with his British partner Peter Heller, while in Spain in June he won another doubles crown with Finland’s Patrick Niklas-Salminen. Staying in Spain, he went on to win back-to-back doubles titles in tandem with the Ukrainian Marat Deviatiarov in Palma del Rio and Bakio.

He also reached the semi-finals in Palma del Rio, going down 6-4, 6-2 to the Austrian Lucas Miedler. In Dublin he reached the semi-finals in the doubles with home player Peter Bothwell.

He started this month by losing in the doubles final at Pozoblanco, Spain, with Serbia’s Darko Jandric and also reached the quarter-finals in the singles. Over the last two weeks in Portugal he reached the semi-final of the doubles with Bothwell in Sintra and made it back-to-back quarter-finals in the singles.

Hoyt has risen 15 places in the world singles rankings, up to 731, while he has improved by 27 places in doubles to 468 – 18 places off his previous high of 2016.