Former junior world No. 5 Jerome Kym returned from a five-month absence from the tour in style, collecting his first professional singles title on the ITF World Tennis Tour at M25 Trento on Sunday.

The 20-year-old Swiss, whose last competitive outing came against Laslo Djere in qualifying for the ATP tournament in Basel last October, defeated Briton Alastair Gray 7-6(7) 6-2 to win a milestone maiden title.

It was a case of fourth time lucky for Kym, who finished runner-up at ITF tournaments in France, Portugal and Greece last year.

Kym, who stands a lofty 6’6” tall, was earmarked as one to watch when he won a doubles match alongside Henri Laaksonen on his Davis Cup debut for Switzerland in 2019 while still aged just 15. He went on to enjoy an excellent junior career, reaching the boys’ singles quarter-finals at Wimbledon and semi-finals at the US Open in 2021.

Kym wasn’t the only first-time ITF men’s champion this weekend, with Britain’s George Loffhagen and German Luca Wiedenmann also securing landmark first titles.

Loffhagen, 21, ended a run of four defeats in ITF singles finals to win the title on Indian hard courts at M25 Mysuru, while Wiedenmann, 24, clinched the silverware at M15 Monastir.

There was also a triumph for 17-year-old Jakub Mensik, a rising star and member of ITF’s Class of 2022 series, who won his fifth ITF singles title at M25 Slovakia, while former world No. 130 Mohamed Safwat ended a three-year wait for silverware with a win on home soil at M15 Sharm El Sheikh.

The 32-year-old Egyptian ended a three-match losing streak in ITF finals with a 6-4 6-0 triumph over Ilia Simakin.

Safwat, whose last tournament win came at the 2020 Launceston Challenger - when he became the first Egyptian in 14 years to win an ATP Challenger event - has won 25 of his 26 professional singles titles at ITF level.

Safwat has a history of milestone achievements, having made history at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics when he became the first Egyptian man to qualify for the tennis event after winning the 2019 African Games.

Catch-up on all the men’s results on the ITF World Tennis Tour here