The Californian beach town of Malibu turned its attention to tennis last week with the town the scene of a combined M25/W25 event on the ITF World Tennis Tour.

The men’s tournament was won by Daniel Altmaier, who recently turned 21 and was the second seed. The young German fought his way through the rounds, where he was twice taken to three sets, to reach his third singles final of the year. Facing the unseeded American Alexander Sarkissian, a second title, and first on a hard court since an April 2017 win, was secured by a 6-2 6-4 scoreline in Sunday’s final.

Also a winner in Malibu was Bianca Turati. The Italian who picked up her first American title in just over a year in Texas two weeks previously, had to fight her way back from a set down to win a third singles title of the year on the ITF World Tennis Tour in a close final match against America’s Katie Volynets 4-6 6-4 6-4.

Staying in America, Mayo Hibi picked up the W60 title in Las Vegas and moves to within 5 places of her career high WTA ranking of 166. Hibi also claimed a W60 title in Berkeley, CA in July.

Italy’s Elisabetta Cocciaretto, one of five teenage champions at the weekend, also came away from the week with a second W60 title of 2019 when winning in Colina, Chile and as a result of this success rises to a new WTA career high of 168. In China, Lin Zhu also saw her position rise to a new high, reaching 71 following her triumph in the W100 Shenzhen final.

Of the five teenagers to win singles titles last weekend, Lisa Pigato from Italy was the youngest at 16. Pigato, who eliminated the top seed in round two with the loss of just four games, came through a tough semi-final 6-7(4) 6-4 7-5 against the Czech fourth seed Barbora Miklova in what also proved to be her final match as her scheduled opponent in the W15 Heraklion final in Greece, fellow Italian Melania Delai, was unable to compete due to sickness.

Saturday saw Pei-Chi Lee win her third doubles title of the year at the W15 Sharm El Sheikh tournament before returning to the court on Sunday to add the singles title. The Chinese Taipei Fed Cup player was the only player in week 45 to achieve this win double.

The race to top the men’s singles titles leaderboard took another twist at the weekend as Karim-Mohamed Maamoun’s hot streak continued. The 28-year-old who recently opened up on his life in the sport as someone with type 1 diabetes, won a second title in three weeks with a 6-3 7-5 defeat of Pablo Vivero Gonzalez at the latest M15 Sharm El Sheikh tournament. The Egyptian is now just one title shy of equalling the seven titles already won in 2019 by the current leaderboard’s top two: Ivan Nedelko and Dmitry Popko.

Two sets of brothers increased their career title hauls with victories at M15 tournaments. In Mozambique, Benjamin and Courtney Lock won a thirteenth title together and not far behind them, the Huertas Del Pino brothers, Arklon and Conner, claimed their ninth whilst competing in Mexico.

Finally, there were two first time singles title winners, both in the women’s game. At the W15 Solarino tournament in Italy, Bojana Klincov overcame Tatiana Pieri in three sets whilst, also winning in three sets, Elena Malygina won in her homeland of Estonia in the W15 Parnu final against Ekaterina Kazionova.