By Owen Morgan
Welsh tennis star Evan Hoyt has won his third doubles title of the year at the first of six events he is due to play in Australia.
Hoyt teamed up with American Dusty Boyer to win the Cairns International – part of the International Tennis Federation’s Futures circuit – and continues to climb the world rankings.
The duo beat home pairing Calum Puttergill and Jacob Grills 6-2, 7-5 in the final held at the Cairns International Tennis Centre on Friday.
Earlier in the day, the former Llanelli Tennis Club player was knocked out at the quarter-final stage of the men’s singles competition by the number one seed Jeremy Beale.
Hoyt, the number five seed, had fought back after losing the first set 7-5 and took the second comprehensively 6-2.
But the Australian bounced back to take the third and decisive set 6-3 to book a semi-final place against another British player Brydan Klein, who was born in Australia.
Hoyt was in excellent form throughout the tournament despite playing twice a day in the singles and doubles competitions.
In the singles tournament Hoyt enjoyed straight sets victories over Australians Lucas Vuradin and Jake Delaney on his way to the quarter-finals.
Meanwhile, in the doubles, Hoyt and Boyer’s route to the final started with a straight sets win over Australian pairing Mustafa Ibraimi and Socrates Tsoronis by 6-0, 7-5.
The quarter-final saw them come up against number three seeds Aoran Wang, of China, and Issei Okamura, of Japan.
After sharing the first two sets, the match went to an exciting decider which Hoyt and Boyer won 10-8.
This victory set up a semi-final against the number one seeds Klein and Scott Puodziunas.
The Welsh-American combination proved to be far to strong for the top ranked pairing, booking their place in the final with a decisive 6-3, 7-6 success.
The tournament success is Hoyt’s third ITF Futures doubles title of the season.
In April Hoyt and Boyer triumphed at the Egypt F14 Futures event at Sharm El Sheikh, while at start of June he was paired with Finland’s Patrik Niklas-Salminen, to win the Spain F13 Futures event.
The 23-year-old has also enjoyed domestic singles success this season winning the LTA British Tour Penarth Windsor event where he beat his former coach Chris Lewis in an all-Welsh final on home soil.
Hoyt’s doubles form this season has seen him achieve a career high ATP doubles ranking of 434 at the start of September.
As a junior he reached number 53 in the ITF Junior World Rankings and was a doubles semi-finalist at Junior Wimbledon.
The right-hander helped Great Britain win the Junior Davis Cup for first time, alongside Luke Bambridge and Kyle Edmund, Britain’s current number one.
At the start of 2016, having won two titles on the ITF Futures circuit, Hoyt reached 542 in the ATP Singles rankings.
Then came a shoulder injury which put him out of the game for 18 months until last September when he finally managed to get back on court.
With his injury problems hopefully behind him, the Reed’s School Tennis Academy alumni’s long-term ambition is to reach the world’s top 100.