There were some local successes at the start of the annual Team Bath Tennis Festival, which is being held at the University of Bath this week. More than 600 competitors from around the country are taking part in the festival, which is now in its 17th year. It kicked off with mini tennis at the weekend, where Avon player Evan Baker beat Sam Austin from Gloucestershire in a close final. Daniel Prickett from Hampshire and...
Team Bath MCTA Tennis Academy player Samantha Murray said she could draw plenty of positives from the biggest match of her career to date, after going down to Maria Sharapova on Court 1 at Wimbledon this afternoon (Tuesday). Murray, ranked 247 in the world, started positively against Sharapova, world number five, the 2004 Wimbledon champion and recent winner of the French Open. The opening two games went with serve, and Murray had the chance to...
Team Bath MCTA Tennis Academy player Samantha Murray faces the biggest challenge of her career to date when she plays French Open champion Maria Sharapova at Wimbledon. Murray, ranked at 247 in the world, received a wild card into the main draw at Wimbledon for the second year running and has drawn Sharapova in the opening round. “When I first heard the draw I was a bit shocked, I just see it as great opportunity...
Two Team Bath MCTA Tennis Academy players have been awarded wild cards to play at The Championships at Wimbledon. Samantha Murray, current British number five, has been awarded a wild card entry to the women’s singles main draw for the second year running. She has also been awarded a wild card to the women’s doubles qualifying with partner Jade Windley. Anna Smith, also a Team Bath MCTA player, and her partner Jocelyn Rae have been...
Team Bath MCTA Tennis Head Coach David Sammel has moulded a life-time of tennis experience with key teachings from other sports in his impressive new book, Locker Room Power. This is a book to dip into rather than read continuously. There are nuggets throughout that you can visit and revisit. Judy Murray writes in the introduction that “Locker Room Power is an extremely powerful concept – for players and coaches – and is a major...
An Olympian, a World Cup medallist and a British Universities champion are the latest Team Bath Athlete of the Month Awards winners. Bobsleigh athlete John Jackson won the men’s award for February after driving the British four-man bob to fifth place at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games. The GBR1 crew of Jackson, Stuart Benson, Bruce Tasker and Joel Fearon, finished just 0.11 seconds off the bronze medal over four runs. It was a particularly...
The University of Bath women’s tennis team completed a hat-trick of British Universities titles with a 5-1 victory over Durham in yesterday’s final. The Bath team had to battle back from a slow start to claim their third title in a row in the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) final in Sheffield. All square at one match each after the two women’s doubles contests, they were then a set down in three of the...
Sports Performance student Alex Walker is celebrating winning the British Universities women’s singles title in an all University of Bath final. Walker beat Economics student Steph Cornish, the number two seed, 6-0 6-3 in the final of the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) Individual Tennis Championships at Sheffield. Walker, seeded six, overcame top seed Anna Fitzpatrick (East London) in the quarter-finals before beating another Bath student, seventh seed Natasha Starling (Business Administration) in the...
BBC sports reporter Jonathan Legard and the broadcasting corporation's cameras were given access to Team Bath tennis coaches and players recently when they came to the Sports Training Village to film. Recording a segment for the Business of Tennis reports shown on BBC News, Jonathan spent time talking to Team Bath-MCTA athlete and 2012 UK under-18 champion, Scott Clayton, to find out just how tough it is to make ends meet as a young tennis player....
University of Bath students Steph Cornish and Alex Walker helped the British team take bronze at the Master-U BNP Paribas University International in France. Great Britain, with Team Bath MCTA Tennis Academy Director of Tennis Barry Scollo as team manager, came third among the eight nations behind winners the USA and second placed Russia. Sports Performance student Walker and Economics student Cornish both impressed as Great Britain beat the host nation 4-2 in the bronze...
