The Bury and West Suffolk Tennis Tournament ended in spectacular fashion on Saturday with three breathtaking finals that were enthralling from the first point to the last.

Throughout the entirety of last week, Culford Sports and Tennis Centre played host to the 87-year-old grade four tournament, with as many as 195 competitors from the eight-and unders right through to the Men’s Open competing.

Saturday saw both the doubles’ and singles’ finals of the men’s competition, and the watching crowd were treated to a display of excellent tennis which was also played in fantastic spirit.

Culford’s own Ewan Evans, who finished third in the 18U competition earlier in the week, took the singles’ trophy with a hard-fought 6-3, 5-7, 10-8 victory over Marco Mitev-Will (Red Lodge Sports Club).

Evans got off to a blistering start with his powerful backhand and clever dropshots in full-flow – helping him take the first set 6-3 with little sweat expended.

Fourth seed Mitev-Will was considerably off the pace, and quite amusingly, one of his many Red Lodge Sports Club team members fell asleep during a disappointing opener for the youngster.

But the sleepy individual was abruptly awoken as Mitev-Will stormed back to take a cracking second set, 7-5.

After breaking Evans early on, the set ping-ponged between the two like Mitev-Will’s swaying long hair, with both players staking their claim to try and win it.

Tied at 5-5, Mitev-Will impressively held before using that momentum to peg back Evans on his serve and force him long in one of two set points to seal the set as his jubilant team cheered.

And in the first-to-10 match tie-breaker, the pair couldn’t be separated before Evans managed to steer two points clear and just hold on to win the trophy and condemn Mitev-Will to two years of final heartbreak in a row.

There was a similarly epic final in 12U Boys Singles, where, after an exhausting 140 minutes worth of play, Jake Sherrick (Boston Tennis Club) pipped Luke Watson (Culford Sports & Tennis Centre) 7-6 (6), 6-7 (3), 11-9 to claim victory.

The Men’s Doubles competition followed the same theme of exhilaration in the final match of the day as Nicholas Porter and Samuel Ratcliffe were crowned champions with an epic 5-7, 7-6 (3), 10-3 win over second seeded Sudbury-based duo John Colgate and Jacob Morgan.

It proved to be quite a tournament for the Risbygate Tennis Club duo as after bad light late on Friday evening saw them return to the court with just two points to play of their quarter-final match-up on, they triumphed before also beating number one seeds Paul Hope and Mitev-Will in the semi-final.

It was a fitting end to a fantastic week, and chairman of the tournament, Susan Glasswell, couldn’t have been happier with the way it went.

She said: “This week has been outstanding and I can’t thank everyone who has been involved enough - that’s the referee Rick Gardner, the volunteers that give up their time to help out, the excellent catering team, the Topspin Tennis team stringing racquets, and the players themselves.

“Many thanks must also go to Culford School for allowing us to use such excellent facilities, and we look forward to hosting this increasingly popular tournament with them for many years to come.”

Glasswell also paid further tribute to Culford School, Glasswells, Ensors, First Choice Marquees and Wildtracks for their sponsorship.