THERE are three categories of tournament in the AEGON British Tour – Premier, Tier One and Tier Two.

Next week's Ilkley tournament, which starts with qualifying for the men on Monday and the women on Tuesday, is only a Tier Two event, but that hasn't stopped it being heavily oversubscribed.

"We had 112 entries for the men's singles, and we only had room for 22 in the main draw and 48 in the qualifiers," revealed tournament director Alan Cutts.

"For example, Ilkley's Steven Hunt was the 37th player outside of the qualifying. The women's singles also has an overall entry of 20 less than the men and is also about double the number required."

The bumper entry does not mean, however, that there is no local interest.

Bradford's Serena Nash is the top seed in the women's singles, while Ilkley members Zoe Judkowski and Isabelle Hearnshaw are also involved.

Nash, who is waiting for her A-level results in media, history and English literature at Immanuel College before she heads to Oklahoma University in the autumn, was seeded second last year.

The 18-year-old has intermittently been testing herself on the ITF Women's Pro Circuit, losing 6-1, 6-3 to Turkish third seed Ons Jabeur in the first round of qualifying last month at the $50,000 AEGON Ilkley Trophy, and 6-2, 6-3 defeat to former world No 14 Elena Daniilidou (Greece) in an identical qualifying tournament at Eastbourne in May.

Main rival to Nash at Ilkley could well be 21-year-old Loughborough University student Louise Holtum, who has already won AEGON British Tour events this year at Graves (Sheffield) and Newcastle.

Another contender is Holly Horsfall, from Hepworth, near Holmfirth, who was beaten 7-5, 6-4 in last year's British Tour final at Ilkley by Sophie Watts.

Also off the same 2.1 rating are 17-year-old Alice Gillan (Kent) and Northumberland duo Grace Dixon, 20, and Emma Wilson, 19.

The main local hope in the men's singles is 19-year-old Peter Ashley from Cookridge, who trains at Bury and is one of five players on a 1.1 rating.

Ashley has reached the semi-finals for the past two years, losing to eventual winner Adam Barratclough in 2015 and runner-up Kyle Brassington (Ilkley) in 2014.

The others off that same 1.1 rating are Jonathan Binding (Durham & Cleveland), a semi-finalist in the AEGON British Tour Masters in January, 20-year-olds Dominic Beesley (Lincolnshire) and Isaac Stoute (Kent) and 19-year-old George Hedley (Berkshire).

While the host club will have use of both of the inflatable court covers, which did such good service during the rain-hit AEGON Ilkley Trophy, there will only be stands on both sides of the Centre Court.

The finals of both the men's and women's singles are a week today, while alongside them are the usual mix of open, handicapped and junior events, with JB Pickard the best Ilkley bet for a junior title in the under-14 boys' singles.