The British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) Barclays Tennis Team Championships took place over the weekend at the Graves Tennis Centre, Sheffield. The Finals are a culmination of 2400 matches throughout the season and after two eagerly contested finals, the winners in both the women’s and men’s events on Sunday were decided in a tie-break shoot out.
In the Men’s Championships defending champions London Met won an impressive seventh BUCS title after defeating Loughborough University whilst Durham beat defending champions London Met to claim victory in the Women’s Championships.
The semi-finals took place on Saturday with Durham and London Met setting up a final meeting in the Women’s event after seeing off Bath 5-1 and Exeter 4-0 respectively. In the Men’s event Loughborough Men beat Durham 5-1 whilst London Met defeated Leeds Met 4-2 in a repeat of last year’s final.
London Met - BUCS Team Championships winners 2010/11 The Men’s Final singles matches on Sunday began with victory for Loughborough’s Jon Kinsella over Matjaz Jurman before London Met’s Olly Kalaitzis levelled the contest after recovering from a set down to defeat Scott Dickson.
Scott Whitbread then edged Loughborough back in front before Gaddo Guidotti held on in a dramatic last singles match on court to send the match into a deciding tie-break shoot out.
The tie-break saw Jurman and Bartosz Terczynski earn victories in the singles against Kinsella and Whitbread respectively before Kalaitzis and Guidotti paired up to beat Dickson and Josh Miller to seal the win.
Loughborough University Men - BUCS Team Championships runners-up
However London Met, who won both the Men’s and Women’s titles in 2010, were denied another clean sweep this year after Durham secured the Women’s Championships title.
Durham, beaten semi-finalists in 2010, claimed singles success through Iva Saric and Sally Pearson whilst London Met replied with wins for Annabel Bann and Hannah Toro. With both sides also winning a doubles match apiece, the contest required a tie-break shoot out to determine the victor.
As the tie-break shoot out commenced Saric gave Durham the advantage with a 10-5 victory over Bann before Toro responded for London Met with a 10-4 win against Anna Oswald. In the deciding doubles rubber Sally Pearson and Lucy Scott edged out Maja Kambic and Anna Koumantou 10-8 to hand Durham their first tennis title in 51 years.
Meanwhile the BUCS Barclays Trophy Final was also contested in Sheffield over the weekend with Loughborough securing a clean sweep with victory in both the Women's and Men's events.
In the Women's draw Loughborough 2nds beat Exeter 6-0 whilst Loughborough Men's 2nds won 4-2 against University West of England.
For results from the tennis and all other BUCS sports at the Championships.
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