Oxford Regain The Women's Universities Title

26/01/26: After two years in Light Blue hands, Oxford regained the Universities women's title with a convincing win at Eton yesterday.

In recent years, attracting a sufficiently large entry to Eton for a standalone women's competition on the same day as the men's tournament in October has proved problematic. A successful change of tack this year saw the women's competition moved to the same day as the Mixed, with the women's competition getting played first and then the majority of players staying on to play in the Mixed afterwards.

The women's competition was played as a Round Robin with five pairs taking part - Cambridge's top two pairs, three Oxford novices, one making up a hybrid pairing with King's and Oxford's first string of Rachel McCormack & Lorenza Valensise, with Freya Butler keeping her powder dry for the Mixed early on in her comeback from a broken ankle.

With the Oxford novices there to gain experience and improve, it was the two Cambridge pairs who were the main threats to Oxford's chances of getting their hands back on the trophy, with Lucy Bland - this time partnering Emma Spencer - looking to win a third title in a row as Cambridge 1. Rachel & Lorenza got off to a good start with a convincing 12-2 win over the Cambridge second pair (captain Anna Fitzpatrick & Tamara Fifield) and all seemed to be building to a final round Cambridge 1 v Oxford 1 battle for the trophy.

In the penultimate round, however, Cambridge 2 showed they had other ideas as their game against Cambridge 1 turned into the closest match of the competition. Both sides had chances to win, but it was Anna & Tamara who came through with a 12-11 win, a feather in their cap but also a result that more or less handed the title to Oxford as Lucy & Emma now needed not just to win their final match against Lorenza & Rachel but to win it by a score of 12-1 or 12-0 to overturn the points difference.

With a lot of the pressure removed, the Oxford pair cruised to a dominant final round win to finish unbeaten with four wins out of four, with Cambridge 2 taking the runners-up slot ahead of their first pair. A longer 4th v 5th final round match was played between Oxford 2 and Oxord/King's, with the extra bit of experience of Alexia da Silva the key factor in a 12-8, 12-8 win for her and Yuti Kumar over Lizze Dobbin & Anna Shone, with all four players showing huge improvement during the course of the competition.

Our thanks go to Eton for hosting the tournament, to the Jesters for providing their generous travel grant, without which the tournament would not be able to operate and to everyone who made it such an enjoyable and fun competition.

1. Oxford 1 (L.Valensise & R.McCormack)

2. Cambridge 2 (A.Fitzpatrick & T.Fifield)

3. Cambridge 1 (L.Bland & E.Spencer)

4. Oxford/King’s (A.de Silva & Y.Kumar)

5. Oxford 2 (A.Shone & L.Dobbin)