Egyptian Davis Cup player Karim-Mohamed Maamoun win his 15th career title at Sharm El Sheikh during week 42 of the ITF World Tennis Tour. The popular resort town has been the site of 14 of Maamoun’s titles, all won since February 2016. Last week’s win is the 28 year old’s fifth of 2019, equalling a similar haul from 2017.

Sunday’s win came in a thrilling three-setter against Marek Gengel who was looking to win a third straight title in Sharm El Sheikh. Maamoun took the opening set 6-4 but Gengel had already fought back from one set deficit twice already in earlier round wins against seeded opposition and the Czech seemed on course to do so once more, taking the second set 6-4. The final set proved similarly close and finally settled the match in favour of Maamoun and dashing Gengel’s dreams of a Sharm El Sheikh hat-trick in the process.

Nicoleta-Catalina Dascalu was the big winner in the women’s game last week at the first of two tournaments this month in Szekesfehervar in Hungary. The 23-year-old last appeared in a singles final in November 2017 when winning the second of two career $15,000 titles but last weekend she found herself taking on Irina Maria Bara in a W60 final in the central Hungarian city.

Dascalu who came through two rounds of qualifying to reach the main event, stunned seventh seed Kristina Kucova 6-1 6-2 in the opening round and then had a far tougher time getting passed fellow qualifier Georgina Garcia-Perez in two tiebreakers. Seemingly more comfortable when the underdog against seeded opponents, Dascalu dropped six games in a quarter-final win over the fourth seed and just four games in a 6-4 6-0 defeat of the second seed and fellow Romanian Irina-Camelia Begu to set up the biggest match of her pro career.

Dascalu’s opponent, compatriot Irina Maria Bara, was no stranger to a match of this magnitude having twice finished runner-up in $60,000 singles finals in 2018. Dascalu had more recent experience to draw upon with two W60 doubles title wins to her name earlier this year but this was new territory for her in singles. Following a tight first set, settled 7-5 in Dascalu’s favour, Dascalu ran out a second set 6-2 winner. This singles title triumph also moves Dascalu to within touching distance, at 286, of her WTA career high singles ranking of 277 set in the summer of 2016 whilst her run to the doubles semis was enough to lift her to a new WTA doubles career high of 240.

Seven players across four continents claimed career first singles titles at the weekend including American Sarah Lee who also took home the doubles title at W15 Metepec in Mexico, one of only two players, with Bosnian Nefisa Berberovic in Tunisia, to achieve this feat this week.

Maiden singles title winners in week 42

Player	Tournament
Duje Ajdukovic (CRO)	M15 Tabarka, TUN
Shalva Dzhanashiya (RUS)	M15 Bukhara, UZB
Anton Matusevich (GBR)	M15 Getafe, ESP
Lorenzo Musetti (ITA)	M15 Antalya, TUR
Sanhui Shin (KOR)	M15 Changwon, KOR
Sarah Lee (USA)	W15 Metepec, MEX
Moyuka Uchijima (JPN)	W15 Hua Hin, THA

Following the weekends finals, there have now been 89 male and 72 female first time singles champions on the ITF World Tennis Tour in 2019.