Madrid magic as tennis stars serve up silver medal at European Championships

The University of Stirling’s women’s tennis team created some memorable moments in Madrid this past week as they claimed a silver medal at the European Universities Championships in their best ever finish at the tournament.

The squad, including Maia Lumsden, Patricia Skowronski and Zoe Moffat, travelled with confidence having seen Lumsden claim her maiden professional singles and doubles titles earlier in the season whilst Moffat also won the Scottish National Championships in May.

Following preliminary victories over University of Innsbruck, National Technical University of Athens and Maastricht University, the team enjoyed a straightforward quarter-final against Polish team, AGH University of Science and Technology, before coming through a tight semi-final against Istanbul Aydin University. The momentum wasn’t to continue though as the unrelenting heat finally took its toll on the players as they lost out to a very strong University of Bordeaux squad in the final.

Meanwhile in the men’s draw, Stirling battled against tough opposition throughout and, despite beating the overall winners Camilo José Cela University, suffered narrow losses through the remaining rounds before finishing in ninth place, defeating the University of Coimbra in their final match.

Commenting on a successful week, Stirling’s Head Tennis Coach, Euan McGinn, said: “It’s an unbelievable achievement for the players and the first time any of our tennis teams have won a silver at the European Championships. It was a tremendous effort from the girls and special mention to my fellow coach, Nick Rosenzweig, who supported them during the tournament.

“It’s been a great experience for the players and they can take away the fact they’ve competed and delivered against national-standard and world-ranked players across the week. They have gained a lot of confidence and motivation which, going into the new season, will help them all as they look to win the British Universities title and improve their own individual standings.”