THE seventh edition of the Ilkley Trophy will be held this summer.

The grass-court warm-up tournament, which ran from 2015-19 and returned last year, is in its usual slot a fortnight before Wimbledon.

However, the $125,000 ATP Challenger Tour event and $100,000 ITF Women’s World Tour event will not run from Sunday to Sunday as before.

Instead, qualifying for the North of England’s premier tournament will start on Saturday, June 17 with finals day the following Saturday.

Ilkley Trophy tournament director Rik Smith explained: “The ATP always want a Saturday final before a Grand Slam, and it also means that players don’t have to rush down to Roehampton on the Sunday for the Wimbledon qualifying that starts the following day.”

For example, Ilkley runner-up Jodie Burrage had to drive down south alone on the Sunday evening last year in order to be at Eastbourne for a WTA tournament the following morning.

Smith added: “One thing that the Saturday final allows us to do is to make a bigger occasion of the first weekend.

“Also we can use the infrastructure, which will still be in place, on the second Sunday – perhaps for the Club Championships.”

A Legends doubles match is another idea that could be thrown into the mix.

Smith, who confirmed that he will be carrying on as tournament director after concerns over whether he could juggle that job with his usual 9-5 working commitments, revealed that he has just come back from a tournament directors’ meeting with the LTA at the National Tennis Centre in Surrey to go through preparations for this year.

He admitted: “We are three to four months ahead of where we were last year.

“We are sorting out the major details for the tournament, such as where everything is going and then we can work on the smaller details.”

The 2022 edition of the Ilkley Trophy was the first in three years to be held as the 2020 event was cancelled due to Covid-19 and the 2021 event moved to Nottingham due to the lack of a bio-secure bubble in Ilkley.

There was even a doubt as to whether this year’s event would be held because of the heavy fines imposed on the LTA by the ATP and WTA over barring players from Russia and Belarussia last summer at Wimbledon and all the warm-up tournaments, including at Ilkley.

Smith confessed: “It was in the back of my mind that there might not be a tournament this year because of the fines.

“We have three governing bodies in tennis worldwide (ATP, WTA and ITF) and there is always political posturing involved but I always feel that there will be a solution reached in the end.”

The club have issued their annual appeal for volunteers to help run the tournament, stating that they will be needed from Monday, June 12 to prepare the site.

Volunteers will also be needed on Sunday, June 25 for a tidy up.

Meanwhile, Ilkley Lawn Tennis & Squash Club have erected a temporary Padel tennis court within their grounds.

It is currently situated on grass court 8, and Smith, wearing his Ilkley Lawn Tennis & Squash Club chairman’s hat, said: “At the moment, it is a temporary structure as planning permission will take time for it to become permanent, but we felt that it was important to have one in place.

“It is the fastest growing sport in the UK and in the world and it isn’t like squash or tennis, where one player who is better than another can make it a one-sided game.

“It is always played as doubles and people who play squash, tennis or racquetball can have a great Padel match in a sociable atmosphere.

“We want to be the leading Padel club in the North of England.”