THE sun shone for the finals of the Ilkley Open Tennis Tourna-ment on Saturday. After a a difficult week troubled by heavy rain and persistent showers the finals were blessed with excellent weather.

The men open singles were won by Ken Skupski who defeated Mark Growcott while the ladies Open singles title went to Lynsey Davison who defeated Janice Torr.

Lancashire left-hander Skupski thus returns to Louisiana State University later this month with a first Hastings Direct Tour title under his belt after beating the hard-serving Mark Growcott 6-3, 6-2.

Essex teenager Jan-ice Torr hit impressively in the women's final but had to bow to the de-fensive skills of Durham and Cleve-land's Lynsey Davison.

The Ilkley club is to hold a post mortem into why entrants were down by over a quarter for this year's tournament.

Last year the tournament attracted 380 entrants but this year the figure was only 270.

A leading Yorkshire-based tennis official said: "The main reason is because the ratings system has been changed.

Previously players could work out when their rating would rise by looking at the number of points they have earned by beating other players.

"Now losses are being taken into account players have decided not to enter tournaments rather than risk having their ratings lowered.

"The new system, which has been introduced by the LTA this season, is a disaster, but this is happening nationwide and not just at Ilkley."

Ilkley President John Corrin said that another factor could well be the bad weather of 2002. Last year the River Wharfe flooded on the Friday morning of the tournament and 22 events had to be cancelled.

However, this year five of the 28 events were cancelled because of low entries, and the other 23 were completed despite the relatively poor weather that often ruled out play on the club's 14 grass courts.

It is not so many years ago that if players didn't enter six weeks before the closing date then they risked not getting into events at all because they were over-subscribed.

USA-based Ilkley member Martin Parkes made up for his early exit in the open event by winning the men's evening singles.

Another Ilkley triumph came from Kyle Brassington who won the boys' Under-16 title beating fellow Ilkley member Hassan Abbas.

Ilkley's Sam Horrix was runner-up in the boys' under-14 event losing in a long three set match. He was also runner-up in the boys' under-14 doubles with fellow Ilkley player Gabriel Hopkins.

Ilkley's Emily Singleton was runner-up in the girls' under-14 event.

In the handicap events Richard Bour-don and Adam Whiteley just missed out on glory taking the runners-up spot in the men's handicap doubles.

However, Richard made up for that defeat by winning the mixed handicap doubles with Cath Sellers.

They beat another Ilkley pair mother and son Penny and Stephen Hunt in the final.