Oxford Dominate The 2022 Universities Tournament

Oxford Dominate The 2022 Universities Tournament

24/10/22: The 2022 Jesters Universities Tournament took place at Eton on Saturday and was dominated by a strong Oxford squad, who supplied all four finalist pairs across the men's and the women's tournaments.

This year's entry was down a little from the usual size, although still healthy enough, thanks to strong representations from Oxford & Cambridge. It is becoming increasingly difficult to get hold of the recent school leavers at other universities around the country and to persuade them to come down to Eton to play (even with the generous travel sponsorship from the Jesters) but nevertheless there was representation from Edinburgh, Durham, Warwick, Royal Holloway, UCL, King's, Imperial and Anglia Ruskin to join the Oxbridge hordes.

The women's competition was especially light on numbers this year, not aided by a late withdrawal, but the four pairs - two from each of Oxford and Cambridge - produced an excellent series of matches, playing a round robin of best of three contests. There was a great deal more experience in the Oxford ranks, with defending champions Rachel Wood & Freya Butler joined by the Valensise sisters Carolina & Lorenza and they both defeated the two Cambridge pairs - U21/U25 champion Jessye Tu & this year's Cambridge captain Alex Davies and Old Uppinghamian Charlotte Bowman & Emma Spencer. The third/fourth place match between the two Cambridge pairs was slightly spoiled by an injury to Alex which kept her off court for the rest of the day; injury also affected the de facto final between the two Oxford pairs, which was played as a best of five encounter. The early exchanges had been close and raised hopes of a long, tight and exciting match but at 6-6, Freya & Rachel broke away to win the first game 12-6. Caro was already beginning to struggle with a bruised hand and this reduced her effectiveness for the rest of the match, which Rachel & Freya were able to close out without too much difficulty to retain the title, a seventh successive win for the Dark Blues in this competition. Rachel & Freya and a combination of Jessye, Emma and Charlotta then set their sights on a second challenge as they joined in the men's competition at the Plate B stage, of which more later...

The men's competition got underway with 17 pairs split into four groups and Oxford again starting as almost unbackable favourites, with heavyweights Hugo Young & Charles Plummer playing at first pair. Elsewhere, though, the competition looked wide open, with Oxford looking strong all the way down to pair 7, Cambridge offering a competitive first pair and a promising pair of freshers at second pair as well as some newer players seeking to gain valuable experience, the 2021 finalists from Durham looking to disrupt the Oxbridge domination once again, a couple of handy London pairs aiming to do some damage, a wild card Edinburgh/UCL Westminster pair who quickly showed they would be right in the mix and a Warwick/Royal Holloway pair flying the flag for Westway Fives.

Hugo & Charles duly won their four group games without conceding a point and put their feet up for a couple of hours. London 1's Dom Robson & Phil Wilkinson (getting on for 15 years as students between them) took second place behind them and James Green & Hatam Barma (Oxford 5) saw off Kacper Mikowski & Josh Schrijnen (RHUL/Warwick) to claim the last qualifying place, leaving the Westway pair and the beginners of Cambridge 5 to target the Plate.

Durham (Isaac Weaver & Poom Hall) brushed off the rust, winning their group and finishing with their best performance of the morning, a 15-6 win against the potentially dangerous challengers of Oxford 3 (Jack Ledigo and Edwin Gosnell). Oxford 6 (Joel Robb & Cyril Schroeder) played some good Fives and were unlucky not to get any wins, with Cambridge 3 (George Poole & Nav Madhavan) getting the better of them to claim third and a place in Round Two.

Oxford 2 (Ben Hart & Beau Swallow) also qualified top of their group unchallenged, with Oxford 7 (Dan Gore & Rohan Tse) heading to the Plate despite a couple of decent showings against Cambridge 2 and London 2. The battle for second and third between the Cambridge freshers Jamie Levinson (Westway) and Freddie Kottler (Marlborough) and the London pair from QEB (Avinash Kumararuban and Abilash Sivathasan) was one of the games of the morning, the Cambridge pair getting their noses in front and getting to 11 first, but unable to convert and finding themselves pipped 12-11 by the Barnet duo.

There then followed something of a pause, while the finished players all waited for the remaining group to catch up, the four pairs in Group B having decided to make their matches last as long as humanly possible. First up were Cambridge 1 (Viral Gudiwala & CUEFC captain Tom Xu) against Oxford 4 (ex-Cambridge captain turned Oxford post graduate Nick Choustikov & the evergreen Spencer Chapman). This was tight right from the start, but Viral never really hit his straps. The two Old Citizens in Oxford colours managed to keep their noses in front all the way through without ever being able to get away from their dogged opponents. In the end the Oxford pair came through 15-11, an excellent result which put them in pole position to win the group. First, though, they had to overcome the threat of Westminster dark horses Alex Benson & Alex Vinen, representing Edinburgh/UCL. This was another lengthy and evenly matched encounter, with Nick & Spencer's match experience and slightly greater consistency just keeping them in front, taking them to a 15-12 win, and first place in the group, which was confirmed with a win over Cambridge 4 (Lasith Siriwardana & Jamie Lai). There was still the small matter of second and third place in the group to settle, however, with different pathways through the knockout stages at stake. This time there was absolutely nothing to choose between the pairs, who were only separated by the final point of the match, as Viral & Tom squeaked through 15-14, much to the frustration of the two Alexes.

The four group winners were straight into the quarter-finals. Who would join them came down to the four repechage matches between the pairs who had finished second and third. First up, the Alexes took out their morning frustrations on a shell-shocked London 2, blowing them away 12-0 in a dominant display. Cambridge 1 put Cambridge 2 in their place with a 12-3 win, as they began to hit their stride after their slow start. Oxford 5 pushed Oxford 3 quite hard but couldn't overturn the rankings and the quarter-final line-up was completed by London 1, who comfortably saw off Cambridge 3.

As the competition moved on to the quarter-final stage, Hugo & Charles had to wake up and find their gloves again, conceding their first points of the day but ending the run of Edinburgh/UCL. Oxford 2 continued to impress quietly, confidently avoiding the potential banana skin of a match up with London 1 with a 15-9 win. Oxford 4 couldn't quite find their early morning form as an improving Oxford 3 played comfortably their best match of the day to go through 15-12. The shock result came in the final quarter-final match. Durham - perhaps thrown by the longish break between matches, perhaps finding the 4am start catching up with them - got off to a disastrous start against Cambridge 1, falling 0-7 behind. They quickly improved and were the stronger pair by the end of the game, but Cambridge had done enough, Tom & Viral completing the comeback from their opening game defeat to win 15-13 and make it into the semi-finals.

At the start of the day, Oxford might have been hoping for an ambitious clean sweep of the four semi-final places. They weren't quite able to achieve that, but their top three pairs were all there in the last four, alongside Cambridge 1. Oxford 1 continued to look several classes above everyone else, dismissing Oxford 3 for the loss of just three points and still barely breaking sweat. Oxford 2 had to work a bit harder to get past Cambridge 1, but Beau & Ben produced another controlled performance and always had too much firepower for their Light Blue opponents.

The final wasn't quite a coronation, but the result was never in doubt. Beau & Ben played some fine Fives, especially in the second game and threw everything they had at their opponents. As they had been all day, though, Hugo & Charles were operating at a different level to everyone else and the quality of their set piece, the speed and accuracy of their volleying and the consistency and lack of errors in their general play were too much for their opponents and they entertained the crowd with a fabulous display of high quality Fives to retain the trophy for Oxford.

Plate A threw up some intriguing matches and semi-final wins for London 2 (12-8 over Cambridge 3) and Cambridge 2 (12-7 over Oxford 5) set up a rematch of the morning group game, which had been an 11-11 sudden death thriller. With some neat symmetry, the second game between the two pairs was an almost exact replay of the first, with Freddie Kottler & Jamie Levinson for Cambridge getting to 11 first, finding themselves unable to convert at gameball and Avinash & Abilash coming from behind to win 12-11, much to the frustration of their opponents.

Plate B was boosted by an injection of new blood as the two women's pairs joined the competition, which divided itself into two groups of three pairs with the winners playing each other in the final. Oxford 6's Joel Robb & Cyril Schroeder had played some good Fives all day without reward, but finally started to get some Ws on the board, reaching the final with wins over Oxford 7 and the Cambridge women. In the other group, Freya & Rachel had their eyes firmly set on a second trophy of the day, dispatching Cambridge 4 and Cambridge 5 in double quick time to make it yet another all-Oxford final. Cyril & Joel started well and were clearly determined to show they were the better pair, dominating the first half of the game. Freya & Rachel began to find their range as the game progressed, picking up late points to briefly threaten an epic comeback with their opponents stuck on 11 and unable to find the winning rally. They got it back to 8 but with the jitters potentially only another rally or two away, a relieved Joel & Cyril finally found the elusive point they had been looking for to finish things off.

Our thanks go to Eton for hosting the event, to the Jesters for their support and travel subsidy and to everyone who came along and played and made it such an enojoyable day.

Results

Women

Oxford 1 (R Wood & F Butler) beat Cambridge 2 (C Bowman & E Spencer) 2-0 (12-0, 12-1)

Oxford 2 (C Valensise & L Valensise) beat Cambridge 1 (J Tu & A Davies) 2-0 (12-4, 12-1)

Oxford 1 beat Cambridge 1 2-0 (12-1, 12-2)

Oxford 2 beat Cambridge 2 2-0 (12-0, 12-0)

Oxford 1 beat Oxford 2 3-0 (12-6, 12-4, 12-2)

Cambridge 1 lost to Cambridge 2 1-2 (12-6, ret)

Winners: Oxford 1

Men

Second Round

Edinburgh/UCL (A Benson & A Vinen) beat London 2 (A Sivathasan & A Kumararuban) 12-0

Oxford 3 (J Ledigo & E Gosnell) beat Oxford 5 (J Green & H Barma) 12-7

London 1 (D Robson & P Wilkinson) beat Cambridge 3 (G Poole & N.Madhavan) 12-6

Cambridge 1 (V Gudiwala & T Xu) beat Cambridge 2 (J Levinson & F Kottler) 12-3