Universities 2024: Oxford And Cambridge Defend Their Titles

Universities 2024: Oxford And Cambridge Defend Their Titles

28/10/24: Oxford successfully defended their men's universities title at Harrow on Saturday, while Cambridge did the same in the women's competition.

Harrow was a new venue for this competition and impressively the 19 pairs of students from across the country - Oxford, Cambridge, Bath, Exeter, Durham, Sheffield, Nottingham - all made it there promptly for the start time. Some of their more senior counterparts could certainly learn a lesson there!

Disappointingly, Cambridge were the only entrants for the women's competition, with none of the Oxford pairs prepared to give up a day to travel to London and no pairs appearing from anywhere else. This is a shame as it is not many years ago that this competition was regularly attracting 10+ pairs, including several from beyond the Oxbridge clubs. Hopefully that will be a state of affairs that we will be able to see again before too long. As it was the two top Cambridge pairs did battle for the trophy on the court at Magdalene College in Cambridge, with defending champions Lucy Bland & Alex Davies retaining their title with a hardfought 15-12, 15-13 win over Alice Rothwell & Emilia Collinson, Emilia narrowly missing out on doing the Universities and Mixed Universities double.

Cambridge were also out in force at the men's event, providing seven pairs, but with most of their top players unavailable it was mainly a case of providing valuable match experience for some of their newer players. Defending champions Oxford were there with four pairs, with last year's winning pair of Beau Swallow and Joel Robb this time split across pairs one and two, but they faced some serious competition with strong pairs entering from Exeter, Durham, Nottingham and Oxford Brookes, all of whom fancied their chances at the start of the day.

One of the best things about this tournament is the way it pairs up players who went to different schools and spent their earlier teenage years battling against each other. As well as the significant cohort of players who have taken up the game after leaving school (mainly at Cambridge but also Oxford and a special mention to Sheffield) there was a wide cross-section of Fives-playing schools represented with players there from Eton, Harrow, Shrewsbury, Charterhouse, Aldenham, City of London, Highgate, Westminster, Repton, Ipswich, St.Olave's, Wolverhampton, KES Birmingham and Berkhamsted.

The opening stages saw the pairs divided into four groups, with the group winners heading directly into the quarter-finals and the second and third placed pairs heading into a play-off round to decide the other four pairs who would make it into the last eight. Oxford 1 (Beau Swallow & Ben Hart) cruised through top of Group A, dropping a mere 2 points in the process, with Oxford 3 (Nick Choustikov & Jonah Poulard) comfortable qualifiers in second place and Exeter 2 (Frankie Manderson-Harkin & Henry Anderson) defeating Cambridge 3 (Tom Ford & Miraj Ahmed) 12-8 to claim third. The early stages in Group B saw Oxford 2 (Joel Robb & Edwin Gosnell) and Nottingham (Elliot Caldwell & Franklin Baron) both see off the threat of Cambridge 1 (Lewis Drummond & Jamie Lai) to set up a last match decider, while Sheffield celebrated an early victory with a win over Cambridge 5 to come fourth. Nottingham came hard at Oxford 2 in the final game of the group, Elliot & Franklin combining well and getting on top early against Joel & Edwin; the Oxford pair rallied but couldn't claw back the deficit, sending Nottingham through as group winners and Oxford 2 into the play offs.

Group C took a little while to get going, as Exeter's Fred Prickett had the small matter of an early kick off Barber Cup match for the Harrovians against the Berkhamstedians to get out of the way first. With that one done, and some miles already in his legs, Fred & Tom Hoskins set about playing catch up, which they did pretty efficiently, defeating Cambridge 6, Cambridge 4 and Bath in quick succession before seeing off the threat of Durham 2 (George Lythgoe & Will Tate) to top the group. The Durham pair won a tight 12-10 game against Bath (Sam Allen and Henry Barton-Smith) to claim second place with the Bath pair finishing third.

Group D had only four pairs and therefore played games up to 15, but among the four were two of the fancied pairs - Durham 1 (Phoenix Ashworth & Charlie Doe) and Oxford Brookes (Gwydion Wiseman & Dominic Mcloughlin). The Highgate/Shrewsbury combination of Albie Gavshon & Giles Holliday (Cambridge 2) made sure of third place, but it was the game between the big two that really captured the attention as the game of the first round. Defeat would certainly not be terminal for the chances of either, but a victory would give the winners a slightly more favourable draw, a passage straight through to the quarter-finals and a bit of confidence and momentum going into the latter stages of the tournament. There was nothing to separate the sides - the Brookes pair had regular recent court time and practice on their side, but the Durham pair - while certainly rusty - had plenty of Fives pedigree, with Phoenix Ashworth (schools champion in 2022 and back on his home courts) playing alongside Charlie Doe (a regular schools finalist and semi-finalist at various age groups in his time at Berkhamsted). In the end it was the Durham pair who prevailed 15-14 with both pairs getting a taste of things to come...

The seconds v thirds play-off round resulted in comfortable victories for Oxford 2, Oxford 3 and Brookes with the one third placed win coming from Cambridge 1, who edged past Durham 2 in a 12-11 thriller. Durham 2 shrugged off the disappointment and reset their sights on Plate A, which they went on to win comfortably, winning the final in a rematch against Bath but by a much more comfortable margin than their first encounter.

Further down the pecking order, there was a satisfying "bragging rights" win for Cambridge 4 over Cambridge 3 in the Plate A quarter-finalists plate final, while Sheffield finished their tournament in style, with wins over Cambridge 5 and Cambridge 7 to claim victory in Plate B.

The main tournament had reached the quarter-final stage, which produced some of the best matches of the day. Oxford 1 continued to cruise through ominously with a comfortable win over Cambridge 1, while Exeter 1 - after a tight first half of the match - accelerated away from Oxford 3 to win 15-8 and book their semi-final place. The other two quarter-finals were bona fide classics, with both Durham 1 and Oxford Brookes both involved in their second 15-14 games of the day. Remarkably, the outcomes were the same as the first time around, Brookes falling agonisingly short against Nottingham and Durham holding off a threatening Oxford 2 comeback to hold on for a second successive sudden death win.

The semi-finals were again played as one game to 15 and finally saw the end of the road for Nottingham, whose terrific tournament ended with a battling 15-9 defeat at the hands of Oxford 1. Hopefully Elliot & Franklin will be back next year for another go. The other semi-final looked as though it was going all Durham's way to start with, as they took an 8-2 lead, with Fred Prickett beginning to feel the effects of his extra match in the morning and starting to cramp and Tom Hoskins - whose returning had been excellent hitherto - finding the Durham cutting a bit hot to handle. The Exeter pair dug in, though, and turned 8-2 and 13-9 deficits into a 13-12 one, giving them a glimmer of hope. Phoenix & Charlie didn't crumble, however, and having already come through two nailbiters successfully, they closed the match out with two strong points to take it 15-12 and consign Exeter to a second semi-final defeat in two years.

The feeling had been growing all day that it was going to take something special to defeat Oxford 1 and Beau & Ben continued their excellent form into the final. The Durham pair had made it through by just about coming out on the right side of the glorious winner to loose play ratio but found that the same margin of error just wasn't there against the accuracy and consistency of the Oxford pair. The extra miles in the legs of Phoenix & Charlie probably didn't help either, and Beau & Ben were always in control, winning 12-7, 12-6 to deservedly take the title as clearly the best pair on the day. This was a second successive win in the tournament for Beau and remarkably a first for Ben in his final appearance in the tournament (the thesis gets handed in in November!), 11 years after his first appearance representing DeMontfort University, which saw him reach the quarter-finals and a 15-14 defeat against Cambridge 2, who featured a certain R.Houlden. I wonder what happened to him?

This was a fantastic day of Fives and it was great to see so many players getting back on court who don't get much opportunity to do so. Hopefully it will contribute to keeping some of them in the game for years to come. It wouldn't be possible without the generous support of the Jesters club, who provide a travel subsidy for all of the players and we are hugely grateful to them, as well as to Harrow for hosting the tournament.

Women's Tournament

Final

Cambridge 1 (L.Bland & A.Davies) beat Cambridge 2 (E.Collinson & A.Rothwell) 2-0 (15-12, 15-13)

Men's Tournament

Round Two

Cambridge 1 (L.Drummond & J.Lai) beat Durham 2 (G.Lythgoe & W.Tate) 12-11

Oxford Brookes (G.Wiseman & D.Mcloughlin) beat Exeter 2 (H.Anderson & F.Manderson-Harkin) 12-3

Oxford 3 (N.Choustikov & J.Poulard) beat Cambridge 2 (G.Holliday & A.Gavshon) 12-1

Oxford 2 (J.Robb & E.Gosnell) beat Bath (H.Barton-Smith & S.Allen) 12-5

Quarter-Finals

Oxford 1 (B.Hart & B.Swallow) beat Cambridge 1 15-4

Nottingham (E.Caldwell & F.Baron) beat Oxford Brookes 15-14