The new rugby season will begin with the ‘big three’ colleges all playing each other in the opening weeks, the new fixture list reveals.

Reigning champions John’s will take on Downing at home in a massive opening-day encounter, with the Red Boys hoping to continue their unbeaten record going back to 2006.

John’s won the league and cuppers double last season, although their close fought 12-10 victory over Downing in November might give hope to those eyeing an early shock.

Old rivals John’s and Jesus will face eachother again on October 26th, after two bad-tempered encounters last year.

The season’s curtain raiser also sees the Division 1 new boys Magdalene and Queens’ clash, while last year’s joint runners-up Jesus take on Trinity at home.

Jesus then face away trips to Downing and John’s in weeks two and three, after which the pattern at the top of the table could already be clear.

Jesus captain Jaimie Miller told The Tab he wasn’t concerned by having big matches early on: “John’s traditionally make a slow start to the season, with most of their players more focused on matching the red of their dank jumpers and 80s tracksuits with this autumn’s trendy shades of lipstick.”

“As for Downing, we’re filthy we didn’t get to play them in the League last year. Maybe if they’d been able to hang around in Cuppers a bit longer…”

The fixtures in the lower divisions have not yet been confirmed, owing to the fact that the final promotion place  for Division 2 and Division 3 Pool A have not yet been finalised. There will be a  play-off between Emmanuel and CCK (Clare, Corpus and King’s) to determine who is promoted to the second division in the first week of term.

Look out for The Tab’s upcoming rugby season preview…

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Last season’s Division 1 standings

Pos			Team	Pld	W	T	L	Game Points	Pts
1	•		St. Johns	10	9	1	0	0	38
2	•		Downing	10	6	2	2	0	30
2	↑		Jesus	10	6	2	2	0	30
4	•		Trinity	10	3	1	6	0	20
5	•		Girton	10	2	0	8	0	16
6	•		St. Catz	10	1	0	9	0	11

Provisional Division 1 fixtures

(Michaelmas term only)

Tues 12th October

John’s v Downing

Jesus v Trinity

Queens’ v Magdalene

Tuesday 19th October

Downing v Jesus

Trinity v Queens’

Magdalene v John’s

Tuesday 26th October

John’s v Jesus

Queens’ v Downing

Trinity v Magdalene

Tuesday 2nd November

Trinity v John’s

Magdalene v Downing

Jesus v Queens’

Tuesday 9th November

Queens’ v John’s

Downing v Trinity

Magdalene v Jesus

Tuesday 16th November

John’s v Queens’

Trinity v Downing

Jesus v Magdalene

Tuesday 23rd November

John’s v Trinity

Downing v Magdalene

Queens’ v Jesus

Tuesday 30th November

Downing v John’s

Trinity v Jesus

Magdalene v Queens’

Blues second-row Dan Vickerman will return to Australia next year to attempt an international comeback.

Vickerman, who led Cambridge to victory over Oxford in December, has signed a three year deal with the Wallabies’, starting in 2011. He will play for the Waratahs in the Super 14, where he has been training for the past two months.

The news of a potential dramatic return for the 54-Test lock was greeted as a “massive boost” by Aussi rag the Sydney Morning Herald.

Vickerman, who is going into the final year of his Land Economy course at Eddies, said: “It was a big decision to leave Australia in 2008 but I wouldn’t change a thing,”

“Rugby has given me the opportunity to play and study abroad but next year is the right time to come back.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ehMZtnzWTI

Vickerman on his Wallabies’ return.

“I’ve been in communication with the coaching staff at the Waratahs and the Wallabies for a while now and collectively we’re all on the same page in terms of where we want to be at and what we want to accomplish.

“I know there’s a lot of hard work to be done over the next 12 months to push for a place in the World Cup squad but that’s what I’m focusing on and that’s what I want to achieve.”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ_gSD51PFo

The 2009 Varsity match, in which Vickerman led the light blues to glory.

Former British Olympian Steve Trapmore is the new Blue Boat boss.

He was today appointed Chief Coach of the Cambridge University Boat Club.

The appointment follows the depature of victorious coach Chris Nilsson for ‘lifestyle reasons’ in early June.

Trapmore joins the Club from his previous position as Chief Coach of Imperial College Boat Club in London.

He will start in September 2010 to lead the CUBC squad in the 2011 Xchanging Boat Race campaign.

In 2000, Trapmore famously stroked the British VIII to a gold medal at the Sydney Olympics (see below).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrNCKQt15_I

“Steve is widely respected by athletes he has rowed with and coached, and has been developing a growing reputation as a coach at both Imperial College and within GB Rowing,” said CUBC Honorary Treasurer Robin Best.

“Importantly, Steve has a deep knowledge of the unique nature of the Boat Race’s challenging Championship Course between Putney and Mortlake as both an athlete and coach.”

Trapmore said: “I am hugely honoured to have been appointed by CUBC and am excited at the prospect of leading the Club in its preparations for the 2011 Race.”

Derek Rasmussen, CUBC President, commented, “Steve Trapmore’s track record both as an athlete at the highest level and as coach speaks for itself. We are all looking forward to working with him in building on this year’s fabulous win. He will have the full confidence of the squad as we get ready to take on Oxford in the 2011 Xchanging Boat Race.”

Read the Tab’s coverage of the 2010 Boat Race and Goldie-Isis race.

CULTC Men’s Firsts dominated their Oxford counterparts in claiming a fifth consecutive win in the Barclay’s Varsity Tennis Match at the National Tennis Centre, Roehampton.

After a 5-5 draw mid-Lent, CULTC came into this year’s varsity match quietly confident that greater strength in depth, intense preparation and a superior team spirit would allow them to continue their hold of the Doherty Cup.

And so the former proved, as after the first two days of singles, Cambridge held a 7-5 lead, with 6 of those wins coming from a 100% record in matches against the Oxford 4, 5 and 6. But given that their Cambridge opposite numbers include no.5, Kirill Zavodov, former Russian U18 no.1, captain Rob Blythe was “unsurprised” by these results.

The killer blow in singles, however, came in the clash between Oxford no.1 Marc Baghdadi and Cambridge no.2, Rutger-Jan Lange. Lange was in inspired form, crushing his opponent physically and mentally after a gruelling first set, going on to win 7-5 6-2, despite members of OULTC claiming that “RJ [Lange] is definitely not a good enough player to beat Marc [Baghdadi]”. The result begs to differ.

Lange took particular satisfaction in this result, remarking “I
n my first year, I played no.6 and the Oxford team acted as though I was some kind of tag-on to the Cambridge team. Now I’ve just beaten their no.1”

On the last day came 3 rounds of doubles, with each pair playing each other pair and Cambridge needing only 4 of the 9 matches to claim victory.

The first round was a tense affair, with momentum shifting back and forth in all 3 matches. However, the greater preparation and greater vocal support showed in the results, as Cambridge went on to take all 3 matches, first Lange/Zavodov 7-6 7-6, then Western/Taubenslag 2-6 7-5 7-5 and finally Blythe/Johnston 4-6 6-3 7-5, Blythe finishing the match with an ace that had “more rip than Rip van Winkle”, to quote coach Nick Brown.

With the score 10-5, CULTC needing 1 win from 6, the second round of doubles was a formality with Blythe/Johnston decimating Oxford’s third pairing of Tristao/Dance 6-0 6-1 with a ruthless display of serving and returning. The result now known, the other pairs relaxed somewhat, allowing Oxford to claim their first two matches of the day.

The final round of doubles, however, took on a more serious tone, as it allowed both teams to experiment with pairings, predominantly for the following year. Of the two new Cambridge pairings, Lange/Jenkins were unable to find a way past Oxford’s second pair, losing 6-2 6-2 but Johnston/Legg showed good promise for the following year, ousting Oxford’s top pairing 6-2 6-7 10-8.

Thus the match finished 13-8 in Cambridge’s favour, taking their tally to 5 consecutive wins (in which Lange and Zavodov have played all 5), and 69 overall to Oxford’s 42. Vamos the Light Blue!

MVP: RJ Lange – Difficult to pick out over 3 days, but Lange’s win over Baghdadi, in particular the manner of it, on the first day set the tone for the whole Varsity and definitely subdued the Oxford crowd, and meant that OULTC were always chasing the match.

Team (from top left): Rob Legg (Downing), Cameron Johnston (Christ’s), John Western (Selwyn), Kenny Taubenslag (Emmanuel), Kirill Zavodov (Magdalene), Nick Jenkins (St. John’s, Secretary), Rob Blythe (Emmanuel, Captain), RJ Lange (King’s).

Cambridge have won the one-day Varsity match to seal a year of sporting domination.

They chased down a total of 270 to beat the Dark Blues and give Cambridge the clean sweep of the historical ‘Big Three’ Varsity matches in 2009-10, following tab victories at Twickenham and on the tideway.

Despite an impressive Oxford batting performance and a slow start to their chase, the Light Blues were pushed into contention by a brilliant 99 run partnership between Rosenberg and skipper Ansari.

In the end it was left to Brown and Kennedy, whose sixth wicket partnership of 64 off 46 balls took Cambridge over the finishing line.

The Light Blues won the toss and sent Oxford out to bat, scoring at a moderate rate of around four runs per over for most of their innings.

With 15 overs remaining, Oxford picked up the pace. Meadows reached his 50 in 41 balls, finishing as the Dark Blues’ top-scorer when he was run-out by Hopkins on 67.

His partnership with Pascoe put last year’s winners in a commanding position – together taking their side from 142-5 in the 34th over to 254-6 in the 48th.

Pascoe and Meadows’ entertaining partnership allowed the members of Oxford’s 2nd XI in the Tavern stand to put a brave face on their humiliating defeat in the reserve team Varsity last week, although their taunts were soon silenced when Greenwood dismissed Pascoe for 42.

The PA announcer’s instruction that “no spectators are permitted on the field of play” could easily have been directed at Cambridge’s fielders, who were reduced in the later stages to watching Oxford shots flying over their heads as the Dark Blues cruised to a formidable total of 270-9.

Cambridge’s chase began in unpromising fashion. Opener Ashok struggled to get bat on ball, only getting off the mark in the sixth over. Soon Timms’ dismissal left the Light Blues on 19-1 in the seventh over, and with a mountain to climb.

The turning point came in the 33rd over, when Cambridge’s decision to take a power-play saw Rosenberg and Ansari up the ante.

Their 99 run partnership took the Light Blues from a perilous 97-3 to 196-4 after 37 overs, Rosenberg reaching his swashbuckling half-century off just 45 balls, including  four fours and two sixes.

His dismissal for 61 in the 38th over left the match finely balanced as Brown strode out through Lord’s pavilion’s famous white gates, Cambridge requiring a rate of 6.3 runs per over to take the Varsity crown.

When he ran his skipper and talisman Ansari out for 54 in the 41st over, the signs looked ominous for the Light Blues. “Your fault Brown” one observer taunted; “you’re all on your own now, cunt” chimed in another.

As it turned out,  Brown was anything but. His new partner Kennedy was equal to the task, scoring faster than any other batsman in the match.

Loose bowling from Tully allowed Cambridge’s to continue Ansari and Rosenberg’s good work, scoring at almost 10 runs per over.

With 20 balls left, Cambridge needed 10, which they knocked off with 13 to spare.

Their victory, which was accompanied by victory for the women’s cricket team in their varsity match on the Nursery Ground, completes the prized ‘Big Three’ Varsity matches for Cambridge in the 2009-2010 season having already won the Rugby Varsity at Twickenham and the Boat Race on the Thames.

The full scorecard is available here.

Cambridge’s cyclists have reaffirmed their status as the best in the country.

Cambridge University Cycling Club (CUCC) clinched the British Universities and Colleges Sports Championships (BUCS) for the third year running with their recent domination of the Track Cycling Championships.

Llewellyn Kinch of Jesus cleaned up at the most recent BUCS competition winning the 4km individual pursuit gold medal, as well as gold in the points race and a further gold in the individual one kilometer time trial.

He was backed up by James Hawkins, who was second fastest in the individual pursuit, and Toby Parnell, who took third spot in that same event as well as bronze in the sprint, going on to win team gold with Kinch overall.

Kinch winning the 4km individual pursuit.

George Bate of Cambridge came in second behind Kinch in the points race to further bump up Cambridge’s BUCS points tally.

Toby Weatherall was second in the sprint and fourth in the individual pursuit, giving Cambridge a one, two, three, four ahead of Birmingham’s fastest rider (who had a BUCS champion lycra skinsuit made up in anticipation of his victory).

Weatherall and Hawkins took team silver to complete a very successful day of racing and secure Cambridge’s firm position at the top of the BUCS cycling table. Full results are here.

Earlier in the year Andrew Nichols, Toby Weatherall and Wojciech Szlachta ensured CUCC’s BUCS campaign set off on the right pedal stroke by winning team silver in the Hill Climb, Nichols coming second overall.

Weatherall (left) beating Parnell in all-Cambridge Sprint semi-final in the track champs.

Nichols, Parnell and Mark Holt then earned Cambridge another team silver at the Cyclocross Championship in Lent term. Weatherall, Parnell and Dan Ahearn snuck to BUCS Gold in the Team Time Trial, raced over 50km in a time of just under one hour and eight minutes, beating Durham by three seconds.

Tom Morris, Ahearn and Weatherall took team gold, destroying the compeition in the 10 mile Time Trial in May term, with Morris coming second overall.

Morris then won the Varsity match and BUCS Gold in the 25 mile Time Trial (averaging nearly 29 mph), with Ahearn and Hawkins helping Cambridge to a team silver. Good performances from, Hawkins, Tom Durno and Szlachta made the Light Blues’ presence felt in the BUCS Road Race earning a further BUCS team silver.

Similarly, Parnell and Phil Buckham-Bonnet both came in the top 20 in the BUCS Mountain Biking to earn their half-blues, held in Dumfries in a chilly Lent term, but also did not score any points.

The Track Champs provided the ultimate triumph for Cambridge, sending the Light Blues above the rest of the country’s universities and retaining the championship in style.

Jesus 177 – 9

Christ’s 39 all out

Matches don’t come much more one-sided than this. Despite a promising run of form in the quarter and semi-finals, Christ’s were totally rolled over by a Charlie Hopkins-inspired Jesus side.

Coming into the match Christ’s captain Harry Bardon could have been forgiven for being quietly confident. His team had progressed without hassle through the group stages and roundly thrashed Churchill to reach their first final since 2001. Their opponents, Jesus, on the other hand, had only just scraped past Caius in their semi.

However, the final was contested by arguably changed sides to those that had blitzed and bumbled their way through the earlier round. Christ’s were missing their batting linchpin, Chris Blake, and Jesus now boasted a side bursting with blues and crusaders players. It was two blues players Frankie Brown and, in particular, Charlie “Hoppo” Hopkins who proved to be the difference in the match.

Bardon, having won the toss, elected to bowl first hoping that his bowlers would restrict the Jesuans to a target his batting-lite side could reach. With the early dismissal of Sam Grimshaw for only 8 runs, Bardon’s strategy faith in his quickies appeared justified.

This dismissal proved to be a false omen. Hopkins and Brown proceeded to smash the Christ’s attack to all corners. The pair racked up 63 runs off just 44 deliveries. Brown was dismissed on the brink of his fifty and, on his way back to the pavilion, appeared just a tad unconvinced by the decision, arguing that the ball had come off pad not bat.

Hopkins raced on to make his half century, including a towering six in the 13th over, before being dismissed for 62. It was around this point that the Christ’s fielders began to stem the flow of runs.

While Ed Pope chipped in with a stylish 20 before being dismissed by the ever-threatening Stephen Harrison, Jesus’ tail and lower middle order failed to match the batting display that had preceded them. Despite this, Jesus closed on an impressive 177 for 9.

Given their performance in the semi-final – they lost only one wicket against Churchill – no one expected Christ’s to collapse in the manner they did. Yet, when faced with the rip-snorting pace of Hopkins, Christ’s batsmen simply disintegrated.

The three opening batsmen were dismissed for a meagre 3 runs but it was in the third over of the match that the rout truly began. Hopkins began by bowling out Bardon and then, after the rare blip of a wide, bagged himself a hat-trick, with Cade and Shah dismissed lbw and James Revell having his stumps destroyed by a vicious in-swinger.

It was only Harrison, the most senior member of the Christ’s side, who prevented the score card from bearing an even more embarrassing total. He battled his way to 18 but the rest of the Christ’s side proved unable to match his heroics.

Speaking at a dinner after the match Jesus captain, Duncan Allan, commented that “We expected a tougher game given Christ’s performances in the earlier rounds but they wilted under the fire of Hopkins. Credit to them for fighting the whole way through though.”

As May Week continues, The Tab looks back on a short and sharp four days of bumping and near misses that concluded with Pembroke W1 maintaining their untouchable position of Head of the River.

Nonetheless, Downing W1 made quite a concerted effort to gain Headship. Overbumping Jesus W1 on the first day was quite an epic (and rare for the 1st division) achievement, jumping from 5th to 2nd place in a mere few strokes. Now set up to take a crack at the Pembroke machine, Downing disappointingly failed over 3 days to bump the Headship crew. Despite the unfortunate result (because, let’s face it, we all want to see Pembroke W1 fail at something, we all like a bit of schadenfreude) Downing look set to be tough competition next year. Better luck next time girls.

Strong performances were shown by Christ’s W1 earning blades, and with Tit Hall, Newnham and Catz working their way upwards.

Jesus W2, as predicted, failed to maintain their spot as the only W2 crew in the 1st division, losing their position to King’s W1. An embarrassing result considering King’s failed to catch even Churchill on the way down. Pembroke W2 also failed to make progress in the W1 division having moved up the 2nd division to sandwich boat.

However, despite being knocked out of the 1st division, Jesus W2 surprised Selwyn W1 by rowing over on Friday and only being bumped on Saturday at the Railway Bridge under ‘dubious’ circumstances. Reports indicate that the umpires were left having to deal with an ‘agitated German’ disputing the Selwyn ‘bump’. A decision was made even harder to make when, according to onlookers, it looked like the bow of Selwyn W1 caught a crab close to bumping. Possibly something to avoid doing in the future.

Further down in the second division, Emma W2 continued their standard blades quest despite their stroke catching a crab off the start at one point. Can someone please bump them next time? Newnham W2 also put out a strong performance, bumping up to the second division.

First and Third held on to their headship of the May Bumps mostly unthreatened from the chasing pack in an action filled four days on the Cam.

FaT used their clear water advantage to, for the most part, stay well ahead of Caius chasing them. The biggest threat came on Friday, when in the closing stages Caius got to three whistles – just 6 feet away from a bump.

The FaT race report described the Friday row as “complacent”. Caius got to this position after coming under pressure themselves from a chasing Pembroke crew, who had 3 whistles themselves at one stage.

Pembroke managed to bump Caius on Saturday, after bumping LMBC and Jesus on the first two days. Pembroke had a tendency to leave it late, as they did last year, with all their bumps coming on the reach, and the bump on LMBC being awarded only a handful of strokes before the finish line.

Pembroke had lost a length over the first half of the course and had to make up 2.5 lengths over the length of the reach. A Pembroke rower commented “we seem to settle into our rhythm earlier than other crews, and start our big pushes when we get to the Plough [roughly 1000m from the start]”.

Jesus performed better than most expected, in the end only going down one place, holding off Downing on the last two days.

Queens’ had a terrible campaign for a crew that dominated for most of the year, their new boat seemed unable to go round corners, twice parking on grassy corner. On Saturday it wasn’t the corners that undid them however; a boatstopping crab at the bottom of the reach (and right in front of the large numbers of spectators at the marquees) left them with no chance to recover before St. Catharine’s overtook for a simple bump. The Catz crew were adamant the crab merely brought forward the inevitable though “at one stage we were 4 lengths behind, but had closed to a length before the crab, we would definitely have got them”.

The bump on Queens’ means Catz are up three for the campaign, almost making up for last years spoons. The incident also meant an interesting Fitzwilliam-Catz race was curtailed, with Fitz within a length of Catz at that stage.

 Fitz will be happy with their result of up 2 for the week, making it into the top ten for next year. As everyone expected, Clare got spoons, competing with Churchill (who also spooned) for worst crew in Division 1.

In Division 2, Robinson endured 8 rowovers as they remained sandwich boat on all four days, never managing to bump up into the first division. There was controversy on the last day as Selwyn, the surprise crew of the division, got incredibly close to Robinson off a fast start, and believed they had made the bump around grassy corner. The umpire following the crews failed to see any contact and Robinson pushed away, leaving Selwyn, suffering from the exertion of their start, to be caught by Peterhouse, which was a reversal of Selwyn’s bump on the first day.

The Wednesday bump led to the rest of the division behind being klaxoned, after a late concession from Peterhouse and slow clearing from Selwyn meant the Downing II boat behind crashed into Selwyn, knocking the Selwyn cox into the river. The rerow between Downing II, Girton and Caius II was uneventful, with all three crews rowing over. These crews rowed over again in the same combination for the next two races, on those occasions Caius II got close to Girton, at one stage on Thursday having overlap but being unable to convert. Saturday saw Caius caught by the blading Homerton crew.

St. Edmunds also won blades, with relatively simple bumps on the first three days, but being held off for much longer by Jesus II. Sidney Sussex were denied their second set of blades for the year, after the crew two in front, Darwin, inexplicably crashing along a straight and handing a bump to Anglia Ruskin. Corpus gained promotion to the second division on Wednesday, but were then bumped back into Div 3 as Christs’ II and Pembroke II moved up the charts, each going up 5 places in total.

Now bumps is over the focus for the top crews switches outside the Cambridge bubble, with several  attempting to gain qualification for Henley Royal Regatta, the most prestigious event in the British rowing calendar, and where college clubs will hope to be able to pit their wits against top British and North American university crews.

Wimbledon: the Low-Down It’s that time of the year again. Strawberries and cream, Pimm’s, dashed British hopes and the manicured lawns of the All England Lawn Tennis Club. 13 days of tennis, 256 entrants in the singles alone and 19 courts may make the tournament seem daunting, but never fear, here’s the Tab’s guide on what to watch out for at this year’s Wimbledon.

Men’s Favourites

Roger Federer – No.1 seed. 6 times champion. 16 grand slams in total. The stats go on and on and suggest that the Swiss Magician is the man to beat at Wimbledon. He’s still the favourite for the title, but there has been a worrying loss of form of late. This Wimbledon may be make-or-break in terms of this chapter of Federer’s career.

Rafael Nadal – The permanent thorn in Federer’s (and every other player’s) side and current world no.1, it would be unwise to rule out Nadal for the title. However, some less than convincing performances at Queens’ and his own admission that he has struggled to adapt to grass again suggest that Nadal may not fare as well as in previous years.

Andy Roddick – A-Rod can be considered something of a Wimbledon veteran now. Having been a finalist 3 times, it is arguable that he deserves a title, especially after last year’s heroic performance and this makes him a favourite. Very few will have a desire to win Wimbledon equal to Roddick’s, making him a genuine contender.

Dark Horse

Lleyton Hewitt – Hewitt is in stunning form, beating Federer in Halle a week ago, and has a excellent grass court pedigree, winning Halle, Queens’ (multiple times) and Wimbledon. He has a reasonable draw and should beat Djokovic based on recent performances, giving him passage into the second week of the tournament.

One to watch

Robert Kendrick vs Jo-Wilfried Tsonga – This is my pick of the first-round matches. Both are serve-volleyers with immense flair and touch and with Tsonga ever the showman, this should be a great match to watch.

Women’s Favourites

Justine Henin – Henin has made a stellar comeback to the tour after a period of retirement and Wimbledon is the one grand slam she has not won. She has openly stated that winning the title was one of the reasons for her return, and with her obvious ability, she is undoubtedly one of the favourites.

Serena Williams & Venus Williams – Where would Wimbledon be without the Williams sisters? Between them they have accounted for 8 of the last 10 Wimbledon titles, with Serena taking 3 and Venus taking 5. Despite this, Serena is the bigger favourite of the two, as she is the world no.1 in singles and doubles (w/Venus) and has proven time and time again that she is a dominant force in women’s tennis. Venus, on the other hand, whilst being lower in the rankings, has won Wimbledon from similar positions before and will pose a serious threat to her sister.

Dark Horse

Sam Stosur – Finalist at the recent French Open, Stosur’s ability to play doubles has never been in question but it is only in the last year or so that her singles form has started to blossom. Possessing many styles of play, as well as the ability to volley well, Stosur has the sort of game that could take her deep into the tournament.

One to Watch

Laura Robson vs Jelena Jankovic – The plucky Brit (sort of) against the no.3 in the world. Its the sort of scenario that fans dream of. Last year Robson showed that she had the game for the big stage by taking Daniela Hantuchova to 3 sets and maybe this year she may go a step further.

A match to hear, however, will come from Serena Williams vs Michelle Larcher De Brito, the former famous for her grunting and the latter booed off court at last year’s French Open due to excessive noise. To those within range, the sounds from this match will resemble a poorly made adult film rather than a tennis match.

British Chances

Andy Murray – Murray has been given a kind draw for this year’s Wimbledon, one in which he will not meet any real threats until the 4th round, where he would be projected to meet Sam Querrey, recent Queens’ champion. This is exactly the kind of draw Murray needs to build form and confidence, and despite his recent slump, it is not optimistic to think he can reach the semi-finals again this year, though going beyond that will take the sort of form we saw at the Australian Open, if not better. He opens against Jan Hajek on Tuesday.

The Rest – With no English male players in the draw for the first time in the tournament's history, British hopes in the mens’ competition rest on Murray and Jamie Baker, who may win a round or two, but will have to play his best tennis to do so. In the womens’ competition, Britain is well represented with 6 players. Of these 4 potentially and 2 probably (Anne Keothavong and Elena Baltacha) would win their first round, but they will all struggle in their second rounds. Baltacha has the best draw, facing Marion Bartoli, who, despite being seeded, is struggling for form this year, in the second round, but it would be hard to predict any of Britain’s women going beyond the third.