Two thrilling men’s matches capped an excellent week of tennis at the Bury and West Suffolk tournament on Saturday.

The competition was held at Culford School and used indoor, astro and hard courts, such was the large number of entries and matches that needed playing.

The showpiece encounter was between Marco Mitev-Will and Jack Bruce in the men’s open singles final.

The first set in the best of three tie went the way of Bruce who won it 6-4, but the second set was a much closer affair.

Both players were favouring powerful, aggressive shots, mostly from the baseline, but these tactics often led to the pair committing unforced errors.

At one stage Bruce was 4-1 up but Mitev-Will mustered a fightback and recovered to 4-3.

Bruce held his next service game to make it 5-3 but another two successive games for Mitev-Will leveled the proceedings.

Mitev-Will then won his sixth game first but Bruce wasn’t letting go and managed to force the tiebreak.

A tense tiebreak followed and Bruce showed why he was the competition’s second seed as he saw the marathon game out, winning 6-4, 7-6(6).

The other exciting match of the day, the boys’ 16 and under singles final, wasn’t as close but was a demonstration of excellent tennis.

William Cooke-Wharton demolished Robert Johnson 6-0, 6-0 in a tie that was decidedly one-sided.

Cooke-Wharton committed very few unforced errors throughout the match and, in a demonstration of the LTAs new Fair Play initiative, often gave his opponent a generous benefit of the doubt on several line calls.

Tournament Organiser Susan Glasswell said: “Entries were slightly down on last year with about 180 players taking part during the week.

“Rick Gardner, our referee, has coped very well under difficult weather conditions during the week and the standard and behaviour of the players as been very good.

“They all seem to have really enjoyed the tournament.”

Susan also thanked the tournament’s sponsors Glasswells, Culford School, Ensors, Inflate.co.uk and the volunteers who ran the event, now in its 86th year.