British Tennis - Lawn Tennis Association

In the ITF Seniors World Team Championships there were medal-winning performances from three teams.  The Womens' 35 team won the Suzanne Lenglen Cup; the Women's 35 team was runner-up in the Maureen Connolly Cup and the Men's 35 won bronze in the Italia Cup.

The presence of well-known players, only recently retired from the professional circuit, such as Sandrine Testud of France and Jeff Tarango of the USA, adds credence to the increasing high standard of ITF Seniors World Team Championships. The British teams performed overall very well, achieving one gold, one silver and one bronze medal with four teams ending in fourth position.

The Women’s 35 team, Karen Cross, Lucie Ahl with Leyla Ogan, repeated their triumph of 2010 in Mexico by again winning the Suzanne Lenglen Cup.  After beating Brazil and South Africa in the group stage, the team entered the play-off where they beat Spain 2-0 and France 2-1 to clinch the title.

Anne Clark, Frances Candy, Sally Freeman and Pat Wire, of the Maureen Connolly Cup team (W55), had 3-0 victories over Ireland and Germany and earned the silver medal by beating France 3-0 in the semi-final before going out to the USA 1-2 in the final of their event.

Meanwhile the Italia Cup team forged its way through to equal its third seeding position in the Men’s 35.  Defeats of South Africa, Costa Rica and Poland led to the play-off where they beat Mexico 2-1 and Estonia 2-0, but lost to 1-2 to Spain to win the bronze medal, ending in third place in a field of 19 teams. 

Four teams just missed out on the bronze medal.  The Austria Cup team (M55), of Paul French, Alec Allen, Mike Dawe and Jeremy Trafford, beat Turkey, France and Spain to reach the semi-final where they lost to the USA.   The Netherlands then beat them 2-1 in the third place play-off.  The Men’s 45 team, of Matt Coombes, James Turner, Ben Knapp and Nick Jones competing in the Dubler Cup, beat Mexico and Sweden and Austria to go into the semi-final against France, losing 0-2.  The third place went to the USA 2-0.

The Young Cup team (W40) beat Russia and Turkey, but lost to the French team headed by Sandrine Testud and proceeded to win the play-off for fourth to sixth, without losing a rubber to Mexico and Germany.  The team members were Michelle Oldham, Isabelle Tyrrell, Sue Wiltshire and Katie Shaw.  The Bueno Cup team (W50), Anthea Stewart, Christine French, Leona Finkelstein and Jenny Hughes, also had a pleasing run to the semi-final, beating Mexico, Ireland and Spain on the way, where they suffered a 1-2 loss the USA followed by a similar score against the Netherlands to end in fourth place.

In the remaining events The Tony Trabert team (M40) was eighth, the Fred Perry team was fifth and the Margaret Court team (W45) was sixth.

Individual successes
Several players stayed on in California for the World Individual Championships where two players reached singles finals.  Isabelle Tyrrell did not drop a set in reaching the final of the Women’s 40, but she was then beaten is straight sets by Jurate Hardy of Australia.  Isabelle also reach the 35s doubles semi-final with her Estonian partner, Maria Bergenheim.

Paul French belied his No 11 seeding to sail through six rounds to the final for the loss of only 14 games into the 55s final but was not allowed to progress further as he lost to USA’s Mark Vines. Jason Barnett reached the semi-final of the Men’s 35 singles, going out to Benjamin Budziak of Poland, and also took bronze in the doubles, partnering Neil Goldsby and Seb Jackson and David Ireland were semi-finalists in the 40 doubles.. 

Christine French was unseeded but won a bronze medal by reaching the semi-final of the Women’s 50 singles, losing to America’s Fran Chandler and with her Australian partner, Brenda Foster, reached the doubles final. Jo Louis also took bronze by reaching the 45 singles semi-final where she was defeated by Klaarte Van Baarle, the top seed.

Mixed doubles was introduced into the Championships for the first time and the 50s event was won by Chris Hearn, with Brenda Foster of Australia, and  Seb Jackson and Nina Topper reached the semi-finals of the 40s event.