ISABELLE Lacy, who had a breakthrough week in reaching the quarter-finals at Surbiton a fortnight ago, has carried on the good work this week at the Lexus Ilkley Trophy as she bridged a ranking gap of over 500 places.

The 16-year-old, who was handed a wild card into the $100,000 Women’s World Tour event at Ilkley Lawn Tennis & Squash Club, showed talent and determination to defeat the experienced Viktorija Golubic 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 last night in the West Yorkshire sunshine.

“She played really well in the first set,” said the teenager of the world No 126, “and I was a little bit nervous and not really going for my shots, but I relaxed in the second set and played a lot more aggressively.

“She was struggling with her one-handed backhand, and in the third set I served a lot better.”

Surbiton High School pupil Lacy, who had a good warm-up the week before Surbiton in the UK Pro League, defeated third seed Madison Brengle (USA) the following day in her local tournament before having a walkover against another American in Sachia Vickery.

Lacy, world ranked 646, admitted: “I learnt a lot from that week. Beating Madison in the first round was a real confidence booster, I have taken a lot of positives and my form here is pretty similar.

“I love grass as it suits my aggressive style, and I am very comfortable on it, but I love hard courts as well.”

Lacy also had to cope with one of several rain delays at Ilkley yesterday when she was 1-1 and 0-30.

“That was pretty tricky,” said Lacy, “but the grass was fine.

“It is tough when you don’t know when you are going on, but you have to be ready the whole day and it takes experience to get used to that.”

Lacy, who is in her first year of A Levels, is on her first visit to Ilkley and admits: “I love it and they have made such a good job with the event with things such as the food court.”

However, Lacy was from the only British success in the Ilkley evening sunshine as fellow wild card Sonny Kartal, a semi-finalist last year, defeated fourth seed Simona Waltert (Switzerland) for the loss of only one game.

Meanwhile, qualifier Charles Broom beat Gijs Brouwer (Netherlands), a quarter-finalist in 2022, 7-6, 6-2.

There were also three-set defeats for wild card Toby Samuel against former runner-up Alex Bolt (Australia) in the first round of the ATP Challenger, and 15-year-old Mingge Xu against Indian eighth seed Ankita Raina and Liverpudlian Sarah Beth Grey against Turkey’s Zeynap Sonmez, both in women’s qualifying.

Losing in straight sets were Talia Neilson Gatenby against Arianne Hartono in qualifying and East Yorkshire wild card Johannus Munday against Italy’s Raul Brancacchio.

Former world top-tenner David Goffin (Belgium) was leading Switzerland’s Dominic Stricker 7-5, 1-3 in another first-round clash when play finally stopped on Centre Court.