OLISA TOURNAMENT

The second Olisa tournament takes place on Sunday 30 April at Lockleaze Centre. This is in memory of former student Olisa who sadly passed away in 2022. 20 teams have entered, including a staff team, for the first time The games start at 13:00 - we would love you to come and support.

Tennis

BUCS Cups and Trophy

Women’s 2nd R/Up Western Conference Cup

Summary Competition

Term 2 has been an incredibly exciting and successful term for UBTC, specifically our BUCS and Maroon Scholar players PostChristmas season was full of important matches with our Men’s 1s competing to get into Southern Premiership playoffs and five teams still involved in Cup or Trophy runs at the start of the term

Our Women’s 2nd team have had a difficult league season due to players regularly having to be ‘bumped up’ into the 1st Team However, we manged to put in some incredible Cup match performances, specifically the semi-final fixture versus top-of-the-table Cardiff 2; players Georgie Pearch and Zoe Body clinched crucial singles matches in 10-point tiebreak third sets, resulting in a 4-2 win. Unfortunately the final got just out of our reach, with a 2-4 loss to Exeter.

After a hard fought season, all teams remained in their respective leagues with strong finishes from our Women’s 1sts and Mens 2nd and 3rd Teams.

BUCS Leagues

-Womens 1st: 3rd Western Tier 1

-Womens 2nd: 5th in Western Tier 2

-Mens 1st: 4th Western 1

-Mens 2nd: 2nd Western 2B

-Mens 3rd: 3rd Western 2B

-Mens 4th: 5th Western 2B

Women’s 2nds Conference Cup Runners Up

Image front row L-R: Angelique Trinder, Georgie Pearch, India Henke and Zoe Body, supported by the rest of the Women’s Squad.

Men’s 2nd R/Up Western Conference Cup

Men’s 1st Team, last match of the season

Image L-R: Alex Matthews, Captain James LiTremble, Captain George Webber, Maroon Scholar Victor Wiles and Maroon Scholar Stan Ntchouissi. James, George and Stan will graduate this year.

The Conference Cup final was a culmination of a fantastic season for our Mens 2nd team The final kicked off to an amazing start with Bristol taking both doubles rubbers; a testament to the hard work and improvement that the lads have made in their doubles’ games Unfortunately the experienced Exeter team proved too good on the singles court, sweeping all four singles.

Despite the disappointment of the final the team finished the term on a 5-1 winning record!

BUCS Individuals

On the weekend of March 4th/5th we hosted the BUCS Individuals Western Qualifier where we had 8 University of Bristol players competing. Wins came from Maroon Scholars Victor Wiles, Chaaya Malik and Jess Holloway Unfortunately these 3 players alongside Ella Walker all lost out at the last qualifying round

Intermediate, Advanced and BUCS players to all be part of the same tournament. We had some excellent matches at Finals on 22 April and it was a fantastic way to bring the club together to mark the end of a brilliant season

Results:

Men’s Final: Victor Wiles won 6-4 6-2

Women’s Final: Ella Walker won 6-3 6-4

Plate Final: Desmond Martin won 6-4 6-1

Saucer Final: Ollie Binnie won 6-0 6-2

Club Development

Advanced and Intermediate matches and Team Challenges

Maroon Scholars Ella Walker and Chaaya Malik; both competed in the BUCS Individuals Singles Western Qualifier held at Coombe Dingle

National Premier League

Term 2 saw the end of both Men’s and Women’s NPL season. The level of opposition was incredibly high and our players fought hard to pick up results against some of the strongest club and university teams in the country. Both men’s and women’s teams finished a respectable 6th in their leagues.

A big thanks to coach Ross Gilbert for playing in the Men’s team for the majority of fixtures; his inclusion has helped the students learn and progress with their doubles play phenomenally

Club Championships

Designed and delivered by Men’s Performance Captain George Webber, the Club Championships allowed approximately 100

Our Advanced men played Team Bath away and despite a good fight, lost 6-2. Our Intermediate men fared better to Cardiff Met, with a 7-3 win. Both Intermediate men and woman drew 5-5 with Birmingham in a tightly fought contest Back home at Coombe Dingle, we have had 35 players engage in our internal Team Challenges.

Workforce

11 of our students completed their LTA Level 1 Coaching Assistant qualification at Coombe Dingle this term This is the first qualification we have offered on-site to our students since 2018 and, working with Game Changers, we were able to provide it at a considerably reduced cost Our current student coach workforce are helping to support and deliver a total of 26 student sessions across four University of Bristol sites.

B:Active programme offer

Alongside the UBTC tennis programme, University Coordinator Ollie has worked with the B:Active team to ensure there are opportunities for new students to access tennis. Since the start of the academic year, we have had 494 sign-ups for B:Active sessions on the Tennis timetable; this includes social sessions, cardio tennis and pickleball.

Thanks

As ever, a huge thanks to the coaching team and staff working with the students; specifically Ollie for creating opportunities for the players in the wider club outside of BUCS, and of course coaches Dom, Max, Ross, Ravi and student coaches Jess, Toby, George, Claudia, Lotte, Jack and Torin for the work on court with these players Thanks also to Strength and Conditioning coaches Will, Tom and Dan for all their efforts with the teams in the gym.

A special mention goes to Torin, as Club Captain, always supporting our drive to get better. Lastly, my biggest thanks goes to the Performance Team Captains Alice Taylor, Ella Walker, George Webber and James Li-Tremble for flawlessly leading our squads this season They have done nothing but model the highest levels of standards, both on and off the court, and have grown into outstanding ambassadors for our club and sport.

Men’s Performance Tennis Team Captain James Li-Tremble James completes an incredible four years of tennis with us this season

Ali Blackett Head Coach, Student Performance Tennis