An art gallery, sunshine and a breeze – and an impressed Swede: all in a week’s work for Eastbourne tennis fans

In the lead event, the Women’s Singles, today’s semi-finals are due to be broadcast live BBC2, and the Women’s and Men’s Singles titles will be decided on Saturday afternoon in front of a huge worldwide audience – and, of course, a sold-out Centre Court.

Qutie a few fingers will be crossed – by players, spectators and tournament organisers as well as by the paying punters – that the Weather Gods play ball in the crucial 48 hours. For those who live here, it has been no surprise to find ourselves coping with a whole season’s weather in a week. Blazing sunshine and baking temperatures last weekend continued into the start of the week: sun hats and Factor 30 at minimum.

But it was getting that little bit breezier from the west – and tougher, of course, for the players – until Thursday morning’s rainy forecast. The glorious grounds of the Devonshire Park do not offer too many places to shelter; but fortunately the end of the week has seen stable weather returning.

And an interesting aside: customers for the ticket office this year have been routed through the entrance to the Towner Art Gallery and its bookshop – occasionally pausing to browse a book or purchase a set of postcards. And as the rainclouds gathered, the staff at our town’s outstanding gallery must have been graciously smiling at the punters and, perhaps, nudging them to pop upstairs and take a look at the Ravilious landscapes in Gallery One, or the superb Hepworth exhibition!

But back to the tennis. In truth, the tournament has suffered just a little from late withdrawals and some frantic changes of schedules. In these days before Wimbledon, players and their coaches can sometimes be torn between tuning up with high-intensity competitions like Eastbourne, or nursing that tweaked calf or tired shoulder.

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Best of the pictures from the qualifers.

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Wednesday’s play in photos.

Who can spot the eventual champion?.

Boulter looks on bright side.

Burrage learns from Eastbourne loss.

For the tournament organisers, it did present some headaches as schedules were shuffled. Some early losers in qualifying found themselves Lucky Losers, slipped into a vacant main-draw slot. And Heather Watson created some sort of record by getting a third slice of action. Sadly she did exit as an unlucky loser at her third attempt!

This is not a classic year for the Brits: we have had three or four feisty and talented players in the Women’s Singles, but the field is strong. Even so, Wednesday’s last-16 schedules saw Jodie Burrage and Harriet Dart still standing – and facing respectively Coco Gauff and Jelena Ostapenko, two of the most talented players in the world. The British women are a work in progress, though, and they gave a packed-tight Centre Court plenty to cheer about.

The last GB representative in the Men’s Singles, Liam Broady, encountered Sweden’s Mikael Ymer – who on the previous day had won over the crowd with his impromptu victory speech. Ymer had edged out Dutchman Ned Van De Zandschulp in a three-set thriller, and in one of those moments when sport crosses all frontiers, he declared: “Thank you for giving us both such wonderful support. I don’t get support like this anywhere in the world – except of course in Sweden. I love this place.”

Thanks, Mikael. We rather like you too – and we locals just love having this huge tennis family encamped in our back garden!

And so the Rothesay International had unfolded. With some seriously big names contesting those semi-finals – and with the sunshine returning as Saturday approaches – it’s been another grand Eastbourne tennis week!