New fast, fun tennis format is courting favour
The Forth Valley is playing host to an exciting new competition in Scottish team tennis - with a Stirling squad already coming out on top.
World Team Tennis has been a fixture of the US scene for 47 years and was created by tennis legend Billie Jean King as a way of giving a normally individual sport a flavour of team spirit.
And now famous face and tennis coach Judy Murray has introduced the format to these shores in an effort to give Scottish players the opportunity to compete after a curtailed season.
The mixed team format includes two male and two female players plus a team captain and each fixture involves a total of five matches - two singles, two doubles and a mixed doubles encounter, with each match being first to five games and captains deciding the order of play via rock, paper, scissors contests.
Points are scored when a player wins a game on their team’s behalf, with matches taking place over an afternoon.
The event also includes updated rules to ensure player and fan engagement including teams being allowed to sit courtside; captains being allowed to call time-outs and make mid-match substitutions; and no ad scoring, with let serves counting also.
Judy explained:“i’ve always loved team events and am aware that tennis is one of the few sports where women and men can play in major events at the same venue or together in mixed doubles.
“And tennis fans are pretty much a 50-50 split so anything that has a mixed format has massive appeal.
“WTT is fast and furious and the fun rules and music create a huge opportunity for fan engagement.
“We lost our entire summer league season and all of our holiday tournaments this year because of the virus so this type of fixture is perfect for club, county or national level as it works for all ages and stages and only requires one court.
“Our Scottish players are crying out for competition so we have trialled it with both juniors and seniors and even had one that was a mix of senior-junior which provides a big learning opportunity for our younger players.”
Judy worked with a Philadelphia-based team in the US event last year and felt it would make a valuable introduction to the sporting scene, with the trial event taking place at son Andy’s Cromlix Hotel a couple of weeks ago.
It saw a team of local players - named the Stirling Bravehearts - see off the West of Scotland Wolves.
Sunday saw the Bravehearts take on Edinburgh team the Big City Rollers, coming out on top by a scoreline of 22-13.
The Bravehearts squad is made up of Scottish number two player Ali Collins from Dunblane, alongside Kirsty Robertson, Joe Gill and Ruaridh Fraser from Bridge of Allan.
They are skippered by Adam Brown from the local AB Tennis Academy, who said:“it’s a really fun format with some great matches.
“The atmosphere and the team spirit was tremendous and the players all really enjoyed getting out on the match court again after a long lay-off.
“I’d like to see this type of event become a regular fixture in the Scottish tennis calendar.” Results:
Ruaridh Fraser beat James Mackinlay 5-4
Kirsty Robertson beat Millie Wood 5-3
Fraser and Gill lost to Mackinlay and E Macintosh 2-5
Robertson and Collins bt Wood and Emma Devine 5-0
Collins and Gill beat Devine and A Macintosh 5-1