University of Bath students Emma Hurst and Pippa Horn will represent Great Britain this weekend in the world’s biggest student tennis team competition, the Master’U BNP Paribas tournament in France.
It will be a third successive appearance at the tournament for Sport & Exercise Science student Hurst, supported by a Trendell Sports Scholarship, who helped Britain match their best-ever result with bronze in last year’s edition. She went on to represent her country at this year’s World University Games in Taipei.
Horn, a three-time competitor at Junior Wimbledon and the youngest-ever British National Junior Singles Tennis Champion, has recently started a MSc in Management at the University of Bath having previously been a full scholar at the University of Texas. She is supported by the Talented Athlete Scholarship Scheme (TASS).
First-year Chemistry student Ben Jones has been named as a reserve for the Great Britain squad, who will once again be captained by University of Bath Director of Tennis Barry Scollo.
“It’s great to once again have such strong representation from the University of Bath at the Master’U BNP Paribas tournament,” said Scollo.
“It is a prestigious event played at a very high standard and helps us develop and prepare players for such competitions as the World University Games.
“Thank you to Team Bath Tennis coaches Ian MacDonald and Craig Proctor for their excellent work with Emma and Pippa, and to the Tennis Foundation for continuing to support student tennis at international level.”
Joining Hurst and Horn in the GB squad are Jonny O’Mara, Jack Findel-Hawkins, Scott Duncan and Maia Lumsden.
The Master’U BNP Paribas tournament, taking place in Lille from Thursday to Sunday, features the top eight student tennis nations in the world – GB, Germany, Belgium, China, Ireland, France, Russia and the United States.
Meanwhile, Team Bath’s Amelia Bissett continued her recent good form by finishing as runner-up in the girl’s singles at last week’s Liverpool ITF Junior event.
Number-two seed Erin Richardson proved too strong in the final, winning 6-1 6-3, but 14-year-old Bissett enjoyed another impressive week of competition and showed great fight and composure to save several match points on her way to a three-set victory in the semi-finals.
Team Bath’s James Mackinlay was runner-up in the boys’ doubles with Rahul Dhokia, having reached the final with a 6-2 6-2 win over Team Bath’s Caleb Ralston and partner Karola Paulosh.
Elinor Beazley, Morgan Cross, Nell Arendt, Yusuke Tamaki and Matt Rutter also competed in Liverpool.
Team Bath’s all-encompassing tennis programme is one of just four LTA International High Performance Centres in the UK – recognised as having exceptional tennis facilities available to performance athletes (junior and senior), members of the public and students. Visit www.teambath.com/tennis to find out more.
Report courtesy of the Team Bath Press Office at Matchtight Ltd
