Superb silvers for tennis ace Toby Samuel and rower Josh Knight as Bath-based student-athletes excel at 2025 World University Games
Team Bath Tennis ace Toby Samuel and University of Bath-based rower Josh Knight both won silver medals for Great Britain at the Rhine-Ruhr 2025 FISU World University Games in Germany.
Samuel, coached by Ian MacDonald at the Team Bath Sports Training Village, enjoyed an excellent tournament on the clay courts in Essen and was only denied men’s singles gold by Japan’s Jay Friend who won a gripping final 6-1 4-6 7-5. He also won men’s team silver with James Connel, who was a bronze-medallist in the individual competition, and Rahul Dhokia.
Knight, coached by Tom Selby in the British Rowing South West GB Performance Development Academy (PDA) at the University, also went mighty close to winning the men’s single sculls title at the Regattabahn Duisburg but was pipped in the final few metres of an excellent final by fast-finishing Moldovan Ivan Corsunov.
Sport and Exercise Science student and fellow South West PDA rower Rebekah Court narrowly missed out on a medal, finishing fourth with Rachel Bradley in the women’s double sculls.
On the tennis courts, Samuel made a confident start to the week as he beat Poland’s Alan Bojarski 6-1 6-4 and eased to a 6-2 6-1 victory over Adam Juradja of the Czech Republic before defeating American Trevor Svajda 6-1 6-3.
The Brit came from behind to win a tough quarter-final against Ilia Simakin 2-6 7-5 6-3, then sealed his place in the gold-medal match by beating home favourite Alessio Vasquez 7-6 6-3.
Fellow Team Bath Tennis player Esther Adeshina’s campaign in the women’s singles began with an emphatic 6-0 6-0 victory over Ecuador’s Macarena Vela Vazquez, which she followed up with a 6-3 6-2 defeat of Turkey’s Defne Cirpanli. She then breezed through the first set of her quarter-final against China’s Li Zongyu but lost the second on a tie-break and that swung the momentum in her opponent’s favour as Adeshina was edged out 1-6 7-6 6-3.
Adeshina teamed up with Eliz Maloney in the women’s doubles and they reached the quarter-finals, as did fellow Team Bath Tennis player Grace Piper in the mixed doubles with Connel.
In the swimming pool in Berlin, University of Bath Student Performance Sport swimmer Christian Ryan – a Mathematics student – marked his first senior international competition by placing 11th overall in the men’s 200m breaststroke.
Aquatics GB Bath Performance Centre’s Jemima Hall, who graduated in Business earlier this month, produced her best performance in the 100m freestyle where she reached the semi-finals and placed 16th overall.
Hall, Ryan and Court have all been supported in their dual sporting and academic careers by the Team Bath Breakthrough Programme.
To find out more about how the University of Bath supports high-performing student-athletes, visit teambath.com/student-sport.
