The ITF World Tennis Tour hosted a record number of higher tier women's tournaments in 2019 in a season of milestones.   

With 1099 tournaments taking place across the Tour overall in 2019 (including 543 men’s and 556 women’s events), the number of tournaments at W60, W80 and W100 level increased to 76 in 2019, up from 66 in 2018 and 68 in 2017.

The global scale of the tour was further underlined with 72 different host nations for men’s tournaments and 64 for women’s tournaments, while prize money totalled $14,560,000 across the women’s season and $9,715,000 for the men.

Arantxa Rus certainly made her mark on the women’s World Tennis Tour, collecting a remarkable 10 titles – the most by a player (male or female) - in a calendar year in ITF history. Eight of the 29-year-old Dutchwoman’s 10 triumphs, which all came at W25 level, came on clay, with two on a hard court, while just one of those was collected on her own turf – in Den Haag in July.

Rus wasn’t the only one to dominate on the women’s Tour, with Egypt’s Maiar Sherif embarking on a sizzling run of 26 consecutive match-wins between 30 April and 2 July. The run of victories saw her collect four titles – at W15 Cairo, two in a row at W15 Tabarka and W25 Madrid, before she finally fell in the final at the W25 Biella.

Perhaps inspired by his compatriot, fellow Egyptian Karim-Mohamed Maamoun produced a similarly impressive run on the men’s side, racking up 23 consecutive match-wins on the ITF World Tennis Tour between 22 January and 24 September in a run that took in three titles in Sharm El Sheikh and a fourth in Cairo, all at M15 level.

There were notable triumphs for Abigail Tere-Apisah of Papua New Guinea, Burundi’s Sada Nahimana and Colin Sinclair (Northern Mariana Islands) – 3 players who became their nation’s first ever ITF World Tennis Tour professional singles title winner. Tere-Apisah won the W25 in Singapore, Nahimana triumphed at W25 Lagos, and Sinclair collected the trophy at M15 Claremont in California.

Tere-Apisah, Nahimana and Sinclair were three of the 191 first-time title winners on the Tour last year, with 105 men and 86 women getting their hands on professional silverware for the first time.  

In the higher-tier tournaments, Russia’s Vitalia Diatchenko led the way with three titles at W60 level – with those three wins contributing to a fine year that saw her win seven titles overall. The 29-year-old was the only woman to win multiple high-tier tournaments in 2019, with the W80 tournaments split amongst 11 different women and the W100 tournaments won by 14 different players.

Yan Bai was the driving force on the men’s side, dominating the M25 category to the tune of five titles.