3:47pm Thursday 18th March 2010
By Tom Foster
BROMLEY tennis star Sean Thornley has made a superb start to the year after claiming a sensational British Tour treble.
The world number 798 bounced back form failing to qualify for three events during a trip to Israel, by coming back to home soil and claiming titles in Corby, Swansea and Bolton.
In the first event, the 20-year-old stormed into the semi-finals without dropping a set before claiming a hard-fought three set win over Nick Lester, the conqueror of second seed James Feaver, to set up a final with world number 506 David Rice.
But the British No 12 from Buckinghamshire unfortunately had to retire at 3-3 in the first set with a wrist injury to hand Thornley his first title of the year.
Thornley travelled to Wales full of confidence and breezed into the final for the loss of just 17 games and continued his sensation run with victory in an enthralling final.
Marcus Willis provided Thornley with an extremely tough test in the final and the Berkshire player looked on course for glory by taking a close first set.
But Thornley demonstrated all of his battling qualities to fight back and claim a second straight title with an impressive 4-6, 7-6, 6-4 win.
After once again winning comprehensively in the early rounds, Thornley produced an excellent performance to knock out top seed Daniel Cox who is inside the world’s top 500.
He then went on to comple the hat-trick with a straight sets victory over Andrew Fitzpatrick in the final.
The triumph in Bolton extended the winning streak to an astonishing 12 matches and Thornley was understandably delighted, attributing improvements in the mental side of his game and new-found confidence as reasons behind his recent success.
He said: “I am very happy with my recent form and I am especially pleased with how I played consistently well over a three-week period, rather than having just one good week.
“I have improved a lot mentally. I have become a lot tougher and started believing in my ability more.
“This confidence is now shown in the way I have started to play.
“I am playing more aggressively and moving forwards a lot more which obviously seems to be working.”
Thornley conceded he had been disappointed with his start to the year but now believes he is starting to reap the benefits of the intense training put in during the off-season to leave him hopeful of continuing his recent form on to the futures circuit.
“I trained very hard over the Christmas period but unfortunately got off to a slow start in the futures,” he revealed.
“However, the hard work is now starting to pay off and now I have had three good weeks on the British tour, I am confident I can start putting this in to the futures events which lie ahead.”
The futures circuit is one level above the British Tour and the Bromley ace made an encouraging start on his return to the higher level by claiming his first ranking point of the season in Tipton.
Thornley eased to a 6-1, 6-2 victory over fellow Brit Lloyd Glasspool before suffering his first defeat in more than a month to Frenchman Gleb Sakharov in the second round.
Despite this, Thornley was delighted to claim his first ranking point of the year and remained satisfied with his overall performance but conceded he had lost to the better player on the day.
“I was happy to come away with my first ATP point of the year in Tipton,” he explained.
“Unfortunately I was unable to carry on my winning streak after this, but I played a pretty good match and my opponent upped his game in the key stages.”
The Bromley flag-bearer has been based at the Sutton Tennis Academy since last August under the guidance of former top 50 player and former Davis Cup captain Jeremy Bates.
And Thornley was full of praise for his coach and believes he is fulfilling his potential by training alongside a number of other promising British tennis players.
“Sutton is going really well and my game has definitely improved a lot since I have been there,” he added.
“Jeremy is a really good coach and he gets the most out of us, it is great to be in a squad with good players such as Josh Goodall.”
As far as career ambitions are concerned, Thornley has expressed his desire to make the world’s top 100 and to play on the Centre Court at Wimbledon.
In the short term, Thornley has set his sights on breaking into the world’s top 600 and reaching the latter stages of some futures events by the end of 2010.
The Bromley man will be hoping to begin his climb up the world rankings when he competes in a couple of tournaments in the UK before setting off to compete in China at the end of the month.
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