V ’12: No love lost in Varsity Tennis

**How many of our teams will compete and how many matches will there be? Can you tell the readers a little bit about the competition itself?
**

CP: We have three teams but only our first two play Varsity. Only the men’s teams compete and our first team plays their first team and our second team takes on their second team. You play for equal points in the first and second team match, so if we lose one and win one it’s a draw overall for tennis even though your individual teams have lost.

BM: Yeah, there are four players in each team, so we play four singles matches and two doubles matches and each one’s equally weighted. So it’s out of 12 points essentially and there are two points for each match.

**How are the squads looking this year in terms of their strength and potential; how do you rate our chances?**

BM: The squads are actually really good this year, a lot better than last year, although unfortunately the league we are in is a lot better as well which is a problem! Last year Birmingham won our league quite convincingly but we played them in our first match this year and beat them 12-0, which shows how much our team’s changed, but then the division’s a lot harder as well. For example, we’ve got Cambridge first team, they’ve dropped down from the Premier League. So we’re fourth in the League at the moment and the men’s second team are going well too.

CP: Coventry are a lot better this year than they were last year, as well. Although we’ve got a much stronger squad this year, they have too, so it almost cancels out. It’ll be a tight-run thing. We drew with them away in term one and lost 8-4 to them this term. They brought in a really good Postgraduate on a short course or something which is all legit, but not really in the spirit, so we think Varsity will be really close.

BM: They’re a lot better this year than they have ever been. We rocked up to play them in Varsity last year and thought they would be rubbish, and we got rolled over, but as Princey said we’re a lot stronger this year. I fancy our chances.

CP: We’re at home and we’re not on their courts so we should get an advantage I think.

**Marc Bagdhadi was dubbed as our star player last year, have we got one this year? You can say yourselves!**

BM: Marc ‘s still here, getting a little bit rusty in his old age but he’s still probably our best player and a force to be reckoned with! But the one to watch, I’d say, is Tim Sagar. He’s the old first team captain and he’s come back this year. He had a year off in his third year, and he’s playing really well. We’ve also got the returning second team captain from my first year, Michael Peretti. There’s also Chris Prince, here, fresh back from injury having had a bad lay off in the first term, so we’re coming into peak strength just at the right time!

**As captain, was it/will it be a tough selection to narrow it down from a squad of eight or nine?
**
BM: Yeah, it’s tough every week because everyone plays really well. It’s hard on me because sometimes I want to include myself, but then Princey plays really well! I’d say we’ve got four players who stand out most weeks so if they’re all available it makes it a bit simpler.

CP: For doubles it can sometimes change up quite frequently if certain pairs like playing together or someone’s not available or anything like that.

**Can you tell me a little bit about the league you compete in?**

CP: We’re in division 1 for the Midlands in the BUCS league. There’s a division 1 for the Midlands, and a divsion 1 for the North, both of which feed into a Premier League for North. There are numerous other divisions that spread out below our division. We have teams in our League such as Cambridge, Birmingham, Loughborough, Leicester and Nottingham. So there are six teams in our league and we play each of those teams twice, once at home and once away. You get a result out of 12 for each match. If two teams are equal they add up the individual scores from the games. You sit in your league determined by those points. I think we’re sitting fourth at the moment.

BM: If we win our League then we have a play-off chance to get into the Premier League, which is a very high standard with world-ranked players competing. So if you’re playing Loughborough, Leeds Met., those sort of universities, you’re playing some of the top players in the country. We’re also in the Cup knockout competition too, which we’re through to the semi-finals of. It’ll be hard to be top of the league now though because we lost and drew games in the first half of the season when we should have won.

**Are our players prepared for Varsity?**

BM: I’d say we are prepared because our results don’t really correlate with our performances. We’re playing really well but in a really tough league and we’ve had a couple of really close games. We’ve had lots of injuries and unavailabilities. We also got through to the semi-finals of the nationwide knockout cup and only got narrowly knocked out by Loughborough.

**How was last year’s Varsity for you both? How did you do, did you enjoy it?
**
CP: I enjoyed the game but there was a lot of Coventry support there so it was a tougher environment than you would usually play in. This year we’ve got home support, playing on the courts we’re used to, so that should hopefully give us a bit more of an advantage.

BM: What I would say is that people should come on down. There’s loads of space there for people to come and watch, which is something we missed out on last year. We turned up, four of us in the team, and there were about 100 Coventry students there, and so it’s not you against the four people you’re playing, it’s you against everyone on the other side. It will be a great day. It’ll be intense, there’ll be tempers flaring, it’ll be interesting tennis.

**What have you both taken from last year’s Varsity? Are you looking to improve on your performance this year?
**
BM: We underestimated them last year, expecting to bowl them over. They’ve got a lot of new, good players but playing them twice in the league this year gives us a bit of preparation because we know the exact players we’re up against.

CP: Yeah, we’re more familiar with them this year, we know their strengths and weaknesses and how seriously to take them.

**Is there a different atmosphere at a Varsity tennis match? Do you feel there’s more passion on display than in other games?**

CP: Whenever we play Coventry whether it be in Varsity, the League, or the Cup, there’s always an extra edge of tension just because it’s the local derby. But at Varsity these feelings are even more heightened. More supporters come from both sides so there’s a lot more excitement and anxiety around the court as opposed to just in it. It’s fun to play because there’s a lot riding on us. Warwick pride takes more of a precedent than anything else.

BM: Yeah, I’d say my main role as captain, at least when we played them last term, is to try and quash any arguments, which happened a lot. They’ve got quite antagonistic coaches, and everything’s a bit dodgy – there’s no umpires of course, and it’s a fraught environment we play them in, definitely.

CP: Yeah, I agree, the players are alright but they’ve got a couple of coaches who like to be a bit argumentative.

**Traditionally, we’ve excelled at Varsity – are we looking for more of the same?
**
BM: Yeah, I think tennis probably dropped points last year for Warwick because although our second team won we drew a blank for tennis overall, but we really should’ve done a bit better so we’re looking for a much more positive result this year. Coventry throw a lot of money into their tennis and are a hard team to beat, which has helped them grow and they’re a very confident side. They’ve got a lot of Erasmus foreign students who are strong.

**Would you say we’re still favourites?**

BM: I think we’d both put Warwick as favourites because we drew with them away on their courts which we don’t like, we’ve got a much stronger team this year, we’re more up for it this year and we know what they’re like.

CP: Yeah I think we’ve got the measure overall. We’ve learnt the lessons of last year, not to be complacent.

**Do you know whereabouts it will be played and on what dates?**

BM: Westwood tennis centre, Sunday 4th March. I think we’ll be the early match on at 11.30am but there will be tennis for us and the second team on all day from 11.30-3/4pm, so I’d definitely encourage those on campus to come; there’s no excuse! If you’re in Coventry or Leamington, get a group of you together to come along. there’ll be loads of us there.

CP: It’ll be a great atmosphere, it’s echoey, intense and there’ll be passionate tennis on display.

**Thanks very much for that guys and good luck!**