There has been British success for both men and women at the European University Team Tennis Championships at the Gosling IHPC over the weekend.

The final of the men’s event saw a close battle between Loughborough and defending champions Rouen, in which the British side took a commanding 3-0 lead.

Despite a thrilling fourth rubber in which Loughborough failed to capitalise on five match points before losing the third set tie-break 12-14, Loughborugh recovered to record an historic 4-1 victory, as they became the first British University to ever win the men’s title.

Loughborough and Rouen reached the finals after semi-final victories over Leeds Met Carnegie and Stirling University respectively.

Meanwhile in the women’s event, Loughborough were unable to gain a second title as Leeds Met Carnegie won the event in an equally high octane final tie.

 “This is the third year that ECTA have run a European University Tennis League. The event was the biggest so far and a complete success” said ECTA directors Jamie Pilkington

The tournament served to highlight the high standard of University Tennis and the high quality programmes that they currently offer their students.

Indeed the success of this year’s event could see an even larger event next year at Gosling IHPC, played over a longer period of time and with more competitors than the eight men’s and seven women’s teams that featured this year.

Elsewhere, British No.7 Jade Curtis reached the semi-final of the $10k AEGON Pro-Series Women’s singles event in Jersey.

Curtis lost 4-6, 1-6 to tournament No.6 seed Matea Mezak (CRO), who went on to defeat Timea Babos (HUN) 6-2, 6-3 in the final.

As the countdown to the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals continues, the final qualification places have been decided after the BNP Masters event in Paris.

Fernando Verdasco (ESP) joins Nicolay Davydenko (RUS) as the final two qualifiers in the singles event despite losing to Marin Cilic (CRO) in the third round in Paris.

In the doubles event, the Polish pairing of Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski followed Max Mirnyi (BLR) and Andy Ram (ISR) in qualifying for the event which commences on the Sunday 23rd November at the O2 Arena in London.

Source: The British Lawn Tennis Association; Monday 16th November, 2009