KYLE Brassington overcame the handicap of playing with borrowed racquets to win his second-round qualifying match at the British Tour men’s singles at Ilkley.

The 32-year-old only carried two racquets onto court but broke a string in each of them on successive points as early as the fourth game of his match against 20-year-old Scot Ruairidh Fraser.

Brassington, who is tennis performance director at hosts llkley Lawn Tennis & Squash Club, then borrowed two racquets from fellow Yorkshire player Joanne Craven before winning 7-5, 2-6, 10-4.

“It was horrible making that adjustment,” confessed Brassington, who is seeded 12th in the qualifying.

“I broke my strings by 30-30 in that fourth game and he broke to make it 3-1 and held his serve for 4-1.

“But then I went 5-4 up, mostly on his errors as he got a bit erratic on his forehand, and then it was just a matter of trying to get the ball in.

“I played pretty similarly in the second set but he upped his level a bit and then it was a matter of getting ready for the champions tie-break in the third set.”

Brassington, who rarely plays competitive singles these days, added: “Maybe I wouldn’t have won the match if it had been a long (normal) third set as I might have struggled with my stamina, but I got my focus back after both of us took a break at the end of the second set, I made a few balls and he gave it me a bit with some errors.”

Former world No 810 Brassington was halfway through his warm-up today in his final qualifying round match against 16-year-old Will Gray from Newcastle when the heavens opened, dashing any hopes of play on the grass for the meantime.

That match will start indoors at 9am tomorrow, along with the other final qualifying round contests.

Host club member Tom Horsfall was beaten 6-1, 6-2 by Adam Hillerby in his first qualifying round match.

There was better news in the qualifying for the British Tour women’s singles, where Ilkley’s Zoe Judkowski showed her battling qualities to defeat Emily Thomas 3-6, 6-4, 13-11 in the first round.

She will meet ninth seed Veronika Hughes tomorrow but Bradford’s Jayanne Palma could only win one game off Rhona Cook, losing 6-0, 6-1 at the same stage.