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#UniTennis Round-Up – Edition 15

12/10/2018
#UniTennis Round-Up – Edition 15

#BUCSwednesdays are back!!! In the 15th edition of the #UniTennis Round Up, we welcome back the British university system’s biggest team tennis competition and highlight some of the best results from week one. We also round up a successful end to a summer of competition on the ITF and British Tours for our university student-athletes.

BUCS
The British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) Tennis Team Championships made its grand return on Wednesday 10 October! With over 360 teams and involving more than 1,800 university students from all over the country, the competition is the biggest of its kind in the UK! Let’s rattle through the highlights from the first full week of competitive fixtures…

Wednesday saw the return of the BUCS National League, the top level of university team tennis competition in Britain. Week 1 showed the high level of competition in this league and suggested this year may be the most competitive since its introduction to the BUCS Tennis programme in 2015. Some extremely close results in week 1, particularly in the women’s league, where every fixture went right to the wire! The result of the day in the men’s league has to go to Loughborough University who shocked 2-time winners Durham University to snatch an 8-4 victory.

Below the National League sits the Premier Tier – 2 high-level leagues for both North & South regions of the UK. The first fixtures of the season through up some interesting results, including Nottingham Men’s 1st putting in a dominant display against Loughborough 2nd in Loughborough and newly promoted Cardiff University and Imperial College London gaining hard earned draws. In the women’s leagues, newly promoted Strathclyde gained an opening day triumph and there were some strong displays from University of Bath 2nd and 1st teams from University of East London and Oxford University.

Underneath the Premier Tier in the BUCS league structure, leagues are further localized into regional conferences.

Cardiff Met Men’s 3rd gained a derby day victory against local rivals Cardiff University 3rd in the Western 3B league and congratulations to University of Stirling who managed an unbeaten BUCS Wednesday, secured by their men’s 5th and women’s 3rd teams in Scottish 4A and 1A respectively – very impressive!!


To stay up to date with the BUCS Tennis Team Championships, be sure to follow @BritUniTennis on Twitter with regular updates and checkout all league/knockout matches & competitions on the BUCS website!

Performance
ITF Pro Circuit
The final GB Pro Series of the summer in Barnstaple saw a wealth of success for current and former British university student-athletes. Imperial College London alumni Mark Whitehouse had an outstanding week; claiming the singles title – his second of 2018 at Futures level – and, with it, reached a career high world singles ranking of 609!
Mark defeated Loughborough University’s George Houghton in the semi-finals whose week in North Devon also helped him to a new career high world ranking of 1160, having only gained one for the first time earlier in the summer. George knocked out fellow Loughborough student Mike Shaw in the previous round, who can now also boast an ATP world ranking for the very first time. Hear what Houghton had to say about playing his Loughborough teammate and how he combines his studies with continuing to develop his high-level tennis.

British Tour
Huge congratulations to Loughborough University’s George Foster who secured his second LTA British Tour title in as many weeks. The second seed defeated number 1 seed and fellow Loughborough University teammate Joseph Newman-Billington in the final – great work from the pair on home soil! Good week, too, for Leeds Beckett’s Paul Johnson who reached the semi-final – Paul will be looking for revenge in the BUCS National League!

More home soil success on the British Tour for University of Exeter’s no.1 Sofie Woon who reached the semi-final of the British Tour on the South coast. Great preparation for Sofie as she heads into the BUCS National League season as the top-ranked player for her university for the first time!