BOTH Andy Bray and Ashley Brooks will be looking to complete a hat-trick of local tournament victories in 2006 in the Argus Open, which starts next week at the WER Joell Tennis Stadium.

Bray maintained his vice-like grip on the men's number one ranking by beating Jacob Trott in an entertaining Island Contruction Open final at Pomander Gate last month.

Brooks cemented top spot in the ladies rankings with a straight-sets win against Liz Hartley in the same tournament, but since then she has stretched herself against international opposition.

Playing in the Bank of Bermuda Foundation ITF Junior Tournament last week, Brooks breezed through the opening round before putting up a creditable fight against top seed Analy Guzman, eventually losing in three sets.

Brooks' stiffest competition in the Argus Open is again likely to come from number two-ranked Hartley. No ladies A singles draw has numbered more than eight players in the past 12 months and in the absence of players of the calibre of the Fisher triplets, Morgan Lightbourne, Caitlin Gordon, Zarah DeSilva and Rachel Sawden, Brooks has a serious lack of competition.

Jovan Whitter, who was playing for the Bermuda Davis Cup team in El Salvador during the Island Construction Open, will provide some extra competition for Bray in the men's draw, although Bray's great rival James Collieson remains sidelined through injury.

And the rapidly improving Trott, who was also selected for the Davis Cup team but missed out on the trip because of a clash of dates with his father's wedding, will be looking to build on his superb performance at Pomander Gate, which pushed him up from ninth to fifth in the island rankings.

Although Trott lost 6-2, 6-2 in that final to Bray, he tested the Englishman at times, particularly early in the second set.

This year's Argus Open will feature a novel "match tiebreak" scoring system, which will be new to Bermuda though it is commonly used in much tennis in the US.

If a match reaches one set all, then the players will be required to play a tiebreaker to decide the match instead of a third set, with the first to ten points (with a two-point lead) being the winner.

This will provide some relief for players from marathon three-setters in the searing July heat and will also allow organisers to schedule starting times with much greater accuracy.

John Bramlett, the ITF referee for last week's international junior tournament, explained that the match tiebreak system was growing in popularity.

He said the US Tennis Association adult league had 550,000 members, who were in the second year of using the system in all matches.

"It has proven to be very successful," Mr. Bramlett said. "This new system encourages spectators to attend events where they will then have the potential to see more players in action and see some exciting finales to matches."

The two-week tournament starts on Monday, with matches starting at 5 p.m. on weekdays and taking place throughout the day on weekends.

Spectators are welcome and shaded seating is available.