7 September 2024 | Tennis West

Alice Stevens and Hans Bustiman have claimed their maiden WA Open title on Friday at the State Tennis Centre, both winning in straight sets. 

After good weather for the first two days of competition, conditions proved challenging with Thursday’s semi-finals matches washed out meaning semi-finals and finals were played on Friday. 

The expected inclement weather on Friday and the fact that Alice Stevens, Ella Nurkic, Casey Ambler and Luka Vujacic could have played up to four matches due to them still being in contention for the doubles meant that matches were shortened to four games a set in the men’s and women’s singles and women’s doubles. 

In the women’s competition, third seed Alice Stevens proved too strong for eighth seed Mahta Khanloo, winning 4-1, 4-2. 

Stevens went through the competition without dropping a set, defeating Emily Tinker, May White and fellow State League teammate Ella Nurkic on her way to the final. 

Khanloo was impressive on her way to the final, defeating second seed Ashley Katz and was pushed to the wire against sixth seed Sara Nikolic in the semi-finals in a three-set nail-biter that went on for over two hours with a rain delay. Khanloo came from a set down to win 3-5, 5-4, 10-7 but the intense match may have taken most of her energy with Khanloo unable to back it up in the final. 

In the men’s, second seed Hans Bustiman showed his class and composure all tournament winning the men’s singles final 4-0, 4-0 against third seed Casey Ambler. 

Bustiman started the tournament well, winning his first two matches in straight sets against Philip Ly and Maico Egbers but was challenged in the semi-final, with fourth seed Luka Vujacic taking a set off Bustiman. 

Ambler also went through the tournament unscathed, winning all his matches in straight sets against Dylan Chuah, Petr Langer and Stevan Ilic but was out classed in the final, making too many unforced errors. 

Unfortunately, the men’s and women’s doubles could not be completed due to the rain. Due to players completing the singles matches first, the doubles semi-final matches started well into the afternoon and with the sun setting and showers continuing to roll through halting play, the courts could not be dried. 

See the results of the WA Open here.

All sights will be set on the Perth International ITF W75, where qualifying starts on Sunday. 

The WA Open is one of WA’s premier amateur events on the calendar and the women’s event in the WA Open is a 20K Signature Series and a lead in event to the Perth International ITF W75 #1.