Great Britain have finished seventh at the Master U BNP Paribas, the International University Tennis Masters, in France.
The team of six - Scott Whitbread (Loughborough), Joe Gill (Stirling) , Matt James (Cardiff Met), Amanda Elliot (Loughborough), Natasha Starling (Bath) and Yvanna Kurlak (Exeter) - represented BUCS (British Universities and Colleges Sport) at the prestigious event in Aix-en-Provence.
The event combines the Davis Cup and Federation Cup formats and each match consists of a singles and a doubles tie for both men and women with a mixed doubles decider played if the combined scores are equal.
Great Britain faced tough opposition against second seeds Russia on day one in an epic tie which lasted for 11 hours. GB men won 2-1, whilst the women lost to the very strong Russian women's team 2-1, leaving the overall score at 3-3. It was up to GB mixed doubles pair Gill and Kurlak in the decider but despite raising their level to push the match all the way to a deciding match tie-break, they just lost out 10-7.
Day two saw the roles reversed with the women's team beating Belgium 2-1 and the men's team losing 2-1, with Gill losing a tight singles match which could have gone either way. At 3-3 again, the mixed doubles wasn't quite as close with the Belgium team coming through in straight sets after a ten-hour tie.
On the final day, Whitbread again led the men's team from the front in impressive style to a 3-0 win over China. However, as the women lost to China 3-0, it resulted once again in a final mixed doubles decider.
This time Gill and Kurlak played some inspirational tennis to defeat both Chinese no.1 singles players in straight sets for GB to win 4-3.
GB Team Captain Alistair Higham said, "This high profile event underlines the importance of university tennis across the world. The standard of tennis was very high and at times the rallies were breath-taking with many of the players holding ATP or WTA rankings."
Photos and full results from the event can be viewed here (link opens in new window).
Found out more information about university tennis here.
You can also follow tennis news from all UK Universities on twitter searching #unitennis
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