New partnership wins women’s doubles title
A brand new women’s doubles pairing of Hungary’s Timea Babos and Luxembourg’s Anne Kremer are celebrating winning the first title of the big week of tennis at the University of Bath.
The pair today (Friday) won the women’s doubles final at the AEGON ITF $25,000 tournament at the Sports Training Village in their first contest playing as a pair.
Their victory was all the more remarkable as it was Babos’ fifth successive women’s doubles title and Kremer’s first ever women’s doubles success.
Babos and Kremer had to rely on a tie-break to go one set up against the Polish pairing of Marta Domachowska and Katarzyna Piter in this afternoon’s final.
But they powered their way to a 6-2 win in the second set to take the title 7-6 (5), 6-2, with Kremer holding her serve to close out the match.
“It’s been a great week for us,” said Babos, who avenged her first round women’s singles defeat at the hands of Domachowska.
“We didn’t really know each other before the start of the week,” she added. “I only asked Anne if she would play with me five minutes before the sign-in was due to close before the tournament.
“She gave me a lot of support and I felt really comfortable with her,” said Babos, whose four previous women’s doubles wins, achieved since November, came with three different partners.
“We were flying all the way to the final and I hope some day we will play together again,” she added.
Kremer, who has won singles titles but never a women’s doubles, said: “It was really easy to play with Timea and I’m lucky she wanted to play with me.
“She does such a good job at the net and I’m much more consistent at the back of the court.”
The pair said they also enjoyed playing their first tournament at the University of Bath. “It’s a great venue for a $25,000 tournament with nice facilities and the tournament has been really well run.”
Domachowska meanwhile, lives to fight another day in the singles. She despatched Kiki Bertens (NED) 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 in the quarter-finals earlier today to book a place in the semis tomorrow (Saturday).
She faces France’s Claire Feuerstein, who saw off Russia’s Marta Sirotkini 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (6).
Number eight seed Stefanie Voegele (SUI) won the battle of the last two remaining seeds in the women’s draw. She beat Italy’s number four seed Anna Floris 7-6 (4), 6-4 to book a semi-final against Elitsa Kostova.
The Bulgarian ended the hopes of the last remaining Brit in the women’s singles, beating Melanie South 3-6, 6-2, 6-4.
But there disappointment for marathon man Nicolas Mahut of France in the men’s singles quarter-finals of the $42,500 AEGON ATP Challenger tournament.
The top seed, who played out that epic marathon contest at last year’s Wimbledon, went down to Andreas Beck of Germany, the sixth seed, 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 in their quarter-final.
Beck now faces Jurgen Zopp of Estonia in tomorrow’s men’s singles semi-finals after Zopp ousted Ervin Eleskovic (SWE) 6-4, 6-4.
The tournament continues tomorrow (Saturday) with the men’s and women’s singles semi-finals and the men’s doubles final.
Sunday sees the men’s and women’s singles finals.
Admission is free for spectators and play gets underway at 11am on both days.
For further information please contact the TeamBath press office at Matchtight Ltd on 01225 383518 or 07765 071683.
Notes
The University of Bath
The University of Bath is one of the UK’s leading universities. Our Mission is to deliver world-class research and teaching, educating our graduates to become future leaders and innovators, and benefiting the wider population through our research, enterprise and influence. Our courses are innovative and interdisciplinary and we have an outstanding record of graduate employment.
We are ranked in the UK top 15 of universities in The Guardian, Times, Sunday Times and Independent national tables.
The University of Bath is a member of The 1994 Group representing 19 of the UK’s leading student-focused research-intensive universities. Established in1994 it promotes excellence in university research and teaching.
The University features world-leading sports facilities at the Sports Training Village which are fully open to members of the public, as well as University of Bath students and staff. Its facilities are also used by individual athletes and teams training for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The TeamBath MCTA Tennis Academy is one of the LTA’s four International High Performance Centre’s and is based at the University of Bath Sports Training Village. It offers a complete range of tennis from mini tennis for kids,
recreational tennis through to performance tennis.
British Tennis
• AEGON is Lead Partner of British Tennis, and supports the game at all levels from grassroots programmes such as AEGON Schools Tennis and AEGON Parks Tennis, through to supporting British talent in the AEGON FutureStars programme and Team AEGON. It is also title sponsor for the British Tennis Series, of grass court tournaments, including the AEGON Championships at Queen’s Club. For further information visit www.aegon.co.uk/tennis <http://www.aegon.co.uk/tennis <http://www.aegon.co.uk/tennis> <http://www.aegon.co.uk/tennis > >
• The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) is working to improve competitive opportunities for players of all levels and ages, including those aged 16-years-old and over, for example through the club v club AEGON Team Tennis competition, and events such as the AEGON GB Pro Series
• Increasing the number of junior players competing regularly, that is those players who compete six or more times a year, is also a key priority for the LTA. This has increased from 8,000 to more than 40,000 over the past four years, an increase of 450%.
