Hear from Alistair Higham, Team Manager and Tennis Foundation Higher Education Manager as the British team go for glory at the World University Games in Kazan, Russia.
Almost time to go home...
Spirits have picked up and we have started to watch other sports. We watched a great win by the GB Men's football team in the semis on Friday night. They were 1-0 down to hosts Russia (10,000 supporters versus 40 GB supporters!) with ten men for second half. GB equalised and then won on penalties! Amazing. We will be at the final tonight to cheer them on.
Water polo, badminton, swimming and rugby sevens have also received our support so far.
Practice continues but with much more of an individual focus for the different events players are playing when they get back. Closing ceremony is tomorrow night and we fly back on Thursday.
Day Seven of Competition - 14th July
Tough day today as Anna Fitzpatrick got off to a bad start and never really recovered. Czech Republic 6th seed Katerina Vankova got better and better as she built up leads in both sets to win 6-1, 6-0.
So that's it for the tennis now, we have three days before our flight home so we will watch some other sports to support GB and do some training.
The team is feeling pretty deflated especially after coming so close to a medal last night but a great performance from the whole team and lots of lessons learnt.
Keep up-to-date with the latest results here.
Day Six of Competition - 13th July
Dan Cochrane and Anna Fitzpatrick just narrowly missed out on a medal losing to the Number 2 seeds Hsin-han Lee and Hua-chen Lee from Chinese Taipei 6-3, 5-7, 8-10 in the match tie-break. There was very little difference all the way through and so a very difficult loss for us, being so close.
They came back from 0-5 in the second set but only to lose out 5-7. They were up early on the tie-break but always fighting to recover from 6-9, losing 8-10.
Anna is back in action tomorrow in her singles quarter-final.
Day Five of Competition - 12th July
Great day as Anna Fitzpatrick made two quarter-finals and is now just one win away from a guaranteed medal as they don't do a bronze medal match here.
In the singles Anna beat Cynthia Setyawan from Indonesia 6-1, 6-4. It was a good win as at 4-4, 15-40 in the second set, it wasn't so comfortable!
Anna then teamed up with Dan Cochrane and they defeated Michal Pazicky and Karin Morgosova 7-6, 7-6 to take us into quarter finals in the mixed doubles.
There was some thrilling tennis with the first tie-break won 13-11 and the second 9-7 from 0-5 down.
We had great support again from Chef de Mission Andy Hibbert and many other team GBR athletes and managers.
Quarter final of the mixed is tomorrow on Centre Court against the number two seeds whilst Anna's singles quarter is on Sunday against 7th seed Katerina Vankova from the Czech Republic.
Centre Court is the place to be with live TV (12 cameras), many spectators and live music at change of ends.
Day Four of Competition - 11th July
There was a GB win at the start of the mixed doubles as Anna Fitzpatrick and Dan Cochrane defeated Mongolian pair Jargal Altansarnai and Margadum Munkhbayar 6-2, 6-2 in their first round encounter.
But it wasn't such a good day in the singles as Chris Simpson lost 6-3, 7-6(6) to Taipei's No.2 seed Liang-Chi Huang and Danieka Borthwick was beaten 6-0, 6-2 by American Sabrina Santamania.
Day Three of Competition - 10th July
Anna Fitzpatrick has come through her tough third round match against the French No.1 Anais Van Cauter, who had already put out the No.5 seed, 6-3, 6-3.
However, in the men's doubles Daniel Cochrane and Scott Whitbread lost out in a really close encounter to Thai pair Perakiat Siriluethaiwattana and Kittiphong Wachiramanowong.
And Danieka Borthwick and Kate Elliott came close in their women's doubles match but lost out on a match tie-break 2-6, 6-2, 10-8 to Tapei's Shu-ying Hsieh and Wen-hsin Hsu.
Day Two of Competition - 9th July
Chris Simpson and Danieka Borthwick both had straight forward 6-0, 6-0 wins over Mongolia's Angarag Sandag and Anguilla's Nzingah Banks respectively. And the doubles event started with Dan Cochrane and Scott Whitbread defeating Madagascans Antso and Vatsy Rakotondramanga 6-2, 6-4.
Day One of Competition - 8th July
Anna Fitzpatrick had the best possible start as she defeated Zimbabwe's Miriam Nyakudzuka 6-0, 6-0 in her singles first round match but Scott Whitbread had a much tougher test against American Eric Johnson and lost 6-4, 6-4.
Opening Ceremony
On Saturday Russian President Vladimir Putin declared open the 2013 World University Games. The extravagant opening ceremony featured fireworks, greetings from the International Space station and a wealth of technological feats.
The Great Britain delegation was led by all American tennis champion Dan Cochrane, in front of a packed 45,000 seat stadium. Dan, an all-American champion this year, is competing in his second World University Games after reaching the quarter-finals in Shenzhen two years ago. He will compete for Great Britain in the Men's and Mixed Doubles.
Dan said, "It was a huge honour to be selected by BUCS and British tennis to be part of the WUGS tennis team. Then to be nominated as a flag bearer. And being chosen to carry the flag, that was the icing on the cake. I am really honoured especially given the high standard of our team with Olympians and Senior Champions."
The interactive show, displayed the local Tatar culture through song, dance and performance. With audience members wearing 3D glasses in parts, the Opening Ceremony celebrated Russian history and science After speeches from the Russian President and the President of FISU, Claude-Louis Gallen, the Universiade torch reached its final destination and lit a giant flame in the centre of the stadium.
Preview
You are being blogged from in the athletes village in Kazan, Russia. We are here for the World University games as part of the 163 strong British Team from all sports representing BUCS (British Colleges and Universities Sport.)
The World University Games is the second biggest multi-sport event after the Olympics with 13,000 athletes, 740,000 tickets ticket sales and an opening ceremony attended by over 40,000.
Our team is funded by the Tennis Foundation and is made up of students, half of which train at British Universities and half at US Colleges (no rule to split it 50/50, team selections just worked out that way).
I am here with US College students Daniel Cochrane from Auburn University; Chris Simpson of Louisiana State and Daneika Borthwick studying at Florida State, whilst the UK University contingent is made up of Loughborough University's Scott Whitbread and Amanda Elliott, with Anna Fitzpatrick from the University of East London.
Canteen in the Athletes' Village
Kazan officials and volunteers are students and can't help enough which is very welcoming. We didn't have long to wait for a memorable 'lost in translation' moment when one of our translators said, "I translate a lot for the Americans, but I really like the British variant of English the best!"
Play starts on July 8th with the singles followed by the doubles and mixed doubles. They are all individual tournaments but a tally of team points will place us together as a team.
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