Societies Spotlight: Downing College Tennis Club
A historic institution
Tennis is one of many sports clubs and societies for students that enrich the extra-curricular life at Downing.
The Downing Tennis Club is a long-term fixture on the College’s sports scene, being first referenced in The Griffin in 1905. However, a photograph from the album of a student who attended the College between 1897 and 1900 suggests its history stretches even further back.
It is one of Downing’s most successful sporting institutions, with 24 cuppers wins between 1959 and 1990, including an impressive 10-year Cuppers-winning run from 1963 to 1972.
Tennis today
Over the course of the recent Michaelmas Term, the tennis team found itself in the fight for the Division 1 title.
The current 1st team squad is made up of a pool of approximately 16 players, both undergraduate and postgraduate, from which four players are picked each week to play in the inter-collegiate match.
This year, the tennis team made a confident start to the year in the inter-collegiate matches, making the most of the wide pool of players within the Downing community and demonstrating what exactly makes tennis such an exciting College sport.
Club captain Jake Leigh said: “With the decision to put forward only one team this year, into Division 1, we made sure to assemble a wide-reaching and varied squad of players, comprised of undergraduates and postgraduate students alike, to ensure there was always an abundance of keen and experienced players available to play each week.
“This mixture of players in the squad is also what makes the tennis team such a great opportunity for intra-college mixing that might not otherwise occur.”
Despite getting off to a slow start and having to agree to a draw in their first match against Trinity 1st due to scheduling and playing conditions, the team asserted its dominance early on by going on to comfortably win their next match against Girton 1st.
This cemented the team’s position at the top of the league where they stayed for the majority of the term, right up until some close final games which left them narrowly in second position, with only one point separating us from Gonville and Caius 1st at the top.
Jake highlighted the dedication of club members, giving a special mention to Maxime Jambon, Rohan Singhal, and Feidias Kyriakidis, all of whom showed up consistently to play throughout the term and helped the team to win a large number of games.
He said: “We feel ready to keep on training and get back to that top spot in Lent Term."
Published 13 February 2024