With a sixth singles title from seven finals this year, Arantxa Rus has joined the leaders at the top of the 2019 title chart and is closing in on a WTA top 100 return for the first time since May 2013.

Rus, 28, picked up her latest title at the W25 Marbella tournament on Spain’s Costa del Sol to make it six title wins from her last six finals. The Dutch Fed Cup player came into the tournament as the top seed and only dropped one set all week en route to winning the title with a 6-2 6-2 defeat of eighth seed Marina Bassols Ribera, who was appearing in her first W25 singles final.

This sixth triumph of 2019 ties Rus at the top of the singles leaderboard of title wins with Vitalia Diatchenko, Seone Mendez and Maiar Sherif.

Since reaching her maiden pro singles final in April 2017, 20-year-old Maryna Chernyshova has contested eleven W15 finals, winning all but three, but last week she picked up her biggest win to date with victory in the final of the W60 Zagreb tournament. Having successfully navigated her way through the qualifying event without loss of a set, Chernyshova reeled off a further ten successive sets to take home the title, at the expense of fellow qualifier Reka-Luka Jani in the final, and jump from a ranking of 400 straight into the top 300 for the first time and a new WTA career high ranking of 280.

Also winning W60 tournaments were the Serbian duo of Nina Stojanovic and Olga Danilovic.

Stojanovic, 23, was playing in China at the W60 Changsha tournament where, as the number one seed, she met with little resistance as she powered her way through the rounds culminating in a 6-1 6-1 win against Bulgarian Aleksandrina Naydenova in the title match for her second title at this level in 2019.

Having missed out on a career second W60 title last month in Germany, Danilovic was not to be denied in Switzerland. Competing at the W60 Montreux tournament, the former Serbian top 100 ranked player was seeded fifth and, like her compatriot Stojanovic, had little trouble moving through the draw and secured the title with a 6-2 6-3 defeat of Julia Grabher.

Danilovic was also one of four teenage singles champions last week along with Elisabetta Cocciaretto, 18, Yshai Oliel, 19, and Michael Vrbensky, 19.

Vrbensky, winner in Hungary at the M15 Szekesfehervar tournament, repeated his 2018 feat in Austria by also claiming the doubles title, the only player last week to achieve this in the men’s game. Ya-Hsuan Lee and Chanel Simmonds were winners of both singles and doubles titles at women’s events in Japan and Israel respectively.

One player enjoying his time in Tunisia of late is Tomas Martin Etcheverry. The 20-year-old Argentine has featured in the last three M15 finals in Tabarka and last week completed back-to-back title wins for the first time in his career and has seen his performances help to close in on his career high ATP ranking of 402.

Lithuanian Fed Cup player (2012-2014) Justina Mikulskyte was a first-time winner last week at W15 Bucha (Ukraine), having reached her first pro singles final earlier this year in June. In the final, the 23-year-old won a closely contested first set but conceded just two games in the second set to wrap up a 7-5 6-2 win over Russia’s Taisya Pachkaleva.