Play this years ATP Bracket Challenge at: -

 http://challenge.atpworldtour.com

Win a chance for an all expenses paid trip for two to a atp tour tournament of your choice and a couple of grands worth of tennis equipment. All you have to do to win points is to predict who will win each of the matches in the draws for the masters series tournament. Last year I managed to finish 13th of 23,000 entrants, so anything is possible!

Keep an eye on the live scores with this widget. Hopefully will have the live video link up soon from bbc iplayer.

Dont worry, im not foretelling some cataclysmic apocalypse 

Since were coming near the end of the semester i thought id give you all a heads up about what were doing for the last week and what were doing tonight!

 Tonight (Wednesday 10th of december), were having our Christmas Dinner in Ryans, Make sure you come down for 7:30pm.

 Ryans is located on the lisburn road just opposite that night club Deez i think, also near the chip shop called monte carlo (formerly Taste and Sea)

Cost is £25, and even if you havent paid the deposit, you can still just show up and pay the full amount when your down there, the craic will be epic. Were also planning on going to either the box after, or gate crashing some Anthropology party… depends on how much drink is consumed. I vote on some good old fashioned gate crashing!

 The last week we will be playing a singles tournament! As the Intervarsities/District League are coming up next semester, this will be a good chance to hone your skills, and see how everything operates. All skill levels are invited, and we’ll match pairs up as evenly as possible. We’ll take everyones name down at the beginning and arrange the matches from there. Matches will be best of 3 games and should be good as this enables you to play alot of people for the experience.

 This week we had a doubles/singles tournament with the beginners and was really pleased to see you all getting on so well! Congratulations to Paul for getting the best Win/loss ratio (71%) Stuart for coming 2nd (63%) and Alfred for coming 3rd (61%) but a big well done for everyone else for participating, Especially Alison for having to put up playing with me at the end, which was obviously a horrific ordeal haha.

 As a random statistic, 1274 points were played, with Stuart and Mary playing the most points (136 each) and Alex playing the least (54), Unfortunately…no trends can be drawn from these random statistics, but just to get you maths/science people in gear for exams? I hope ive helped in my own small way.

 And Finally id like to direct you all to the Intervarsity section where Chris has done a very exciting article on the upcoming tournament.  

Hi folks,

Just a quick shout out to say the intervarsity page has been updated, so check it out. Keep the dates in the back of your mind because we want to give it a really good shot this year!

Hey everyone, hope your all keeping well! Just got a few announcements to make in relation to the club and the ladder.

First thing id like to announce is the Ladder, The ladder has officially begun and you can begin challenging people. Id recommend showing up on wednesday, and ill bring down a copy of the ladder so you can see where you are.

1. Your allowed to challenge anyone on the ladder for your first two challenges (you can even challenge outside your own group e.g. Beginners challenging an Intermediate). If you want to change groups thats fine, but you will begin at the bottom of your chosen group.
2. The players choose how many sets to play, 1,2,3 etc.
3. Sets at 6-6 will be decided by a normal tie-break. (first to 7)
4. Scores should be given to me (Dave) at the end of the match, either you can find me on the wednesday or if you play outside of wednesday email me, (Can be found in the club info section). Scores should be recorded as follows eg. Jimmy Smith bt Tommy Jones 6-2 6-1.
5. Failure to accept a challenge within 7 days (unless a valid reason given), i.e from one wednesday to the next, will mean you forfeit your place to the challenger.
6. Results will be put up on the website after every wednesday.
7. Prizes will be awarded to the top men and women of each group at the end of the year, so its in your interest to grab that top spot!

My second announcement, if anyone has noticed, we have a new coach! Brian Murphy resident coaching legend at the boat club has decided to take up the mantle to coach intermediates and will coach the beginners every second wednesday. That means you will also get me coaching the beginners class on wednesdays, (2 coaches! its like christmas come early!!) and i will help Brian out whenever possible with the intermediate squad! We greatly appreciate any feedback about coaching, or anything you want explained feel free to tell us on the wednesday classes.

 We are still inviting new members down to the club, so even if you signed up at the bazaar and havent had the time to come down, dont feel frightened that everyone will be miles ahead and in little cliques, were a very open club and you can come down whenever and we try and make everyone feel welcomed! We try and make the squads as mixed as possible so no-one will be feeling left out, but also id like to thank all our members for being very friendly, as i know its hard to talk to everyone but i feel like everyone has gelled really well, and weve had very good turn outs for all the socials, so hopefully this will make for a very successful year.

I know you are all dearly missing my World Tennis News emails so for nostalgia’s sake here’s a round up of this year.

Well I can’t believe it’s that time again, the tennis season has come to a close. Most women I know are relieved when the football season is over, but I doubt most people even know when the tennis season is. Well I’ll tell you, it runs from January to October with a big end of season tournament in November.

Speaking of said tournament, that was played this week where the worlds best 8 players from the season come head to head for one final showdown. It involved the like of Roger Federer, new world no.1 Rafael Nadal, and for the first time Britain’s Andy Murray. The eventual winner was Novak Djokovic in an unexpected final with my least favourite player Nikolay Davydenko. Murray had a descent run too, winning all of 3 his group games (including Federer), only to go out in the next round.

I have been playing a fantasy tennis league this year and I finished 12th from 23,033 players so hopefully when I make a tennis prediction now it carries some sort of credibility, and next year I’m gonna predict the following. Andy Murray has a lot of points to gain in the first half of next season, with poor efforts in the aus open, early masters series and clay court season this year. He is ranked 4th in the world, which will mean being seeded to make at least semi finals in big tournaments which should make it easier for him to progress through the draw, instead of having to face the likes of Nadal in the 4th round! I expect more of the same from rafa, dominating on clay, and trying to be more competitive on hard court. I think Djokovic will always be a danger, but I think he lacks the legend factor that Nadal and Federer clearly have. Speaking of Roger - I wouldn’t write him off just yet, he will not be pleased with how things have went this season, and he will want to prove everyone wrong, and get back to no.1, and I think he certainly could do it. Lastly my one to look out for next season - well there are a few. Jo-Wilfred Tsonga and David Nalbandian (if he ever shrugs off that false start syndrome!).

Chris

IV Coordinator

Yesterday, QUBTC descended on the odyssey like a blistering wind! All be it…. a wind without much finances. We tore the bowling lane apart with our awesome skill and finesse….ohhh wait that must have been a dream haha. Well it started well anyways…bar James getting lost? How did he manage that you may ask, i dont think we shall ever truly discover the reason…but like X-files always said…The truth is out there.

 There was a decent crowd of us, roughly around 19… we all had some good banter, warming up the drinking muscles before the box…a good athlete always warms up, even for a session of drinking. I would definitely question the health and safety aspect of 10 kilogram bowling balls and drunken lunatics…but i guess we were blissfully unaware of the impending foot breakages, go team us!

 The bowling just didnt last long enough though….i guess time flies when your having a good time! and before we knew it, it was 10 oclock and we then migrated the box. Im gonna say 3 words…. Tequila Supersoaking Stripping…Ill let your mind ponder on that one lol. We all merrily boarded the boat of Steam…adequately helped by Tequila shots and £2 drinks! Then we all had a wee go shaking our buttocks’ on the stage, in what we hoped was a stylish and seductive manner….lets just hope photography doesnt rear its ugly head in that instance and we can all hold the treasured memory in our heads, as a lesson for the future at any rate.

I would just like to thank everyone that came out, i know it does involve a bit of courage, but i hope you seen it was well rewarded and it might entice those other shy people to have a bash it, we dont bite! hard haha

Id like to share a few tips for all future Outings!

1) Alcohol tastes much better when its being shot at you

2) If someones running at you covering there mouth, stand well back lol

3) Have a bottle of water beside your bed, as well as a Sachet of Dioralyte, and 2 C0-Codamol tablets.

4) Consider never consuming alcohol ever ever again….at least until next wednesday.

 These headache saving tips were brought to you by McDave, who is still on that scenic route called..The road to recovery.

Hey everyone, Hope everyone is doin well, courses goin grand, hating our light and refreshing weather aka Rain!

The first two weeks have went fairly well, our coach couldnt make it last week, so i would like to thank Brian and the rest of the commitee for helping out! So i just want to point out some short notices!

1. People playing matches on the spare courts, can you please limit matches to best of 4 games, if there are other people waiting for courts. And if we have alot of people can you refrain from playing singles and play doubles please.

2. Chris Sanlon is selling cheap tennis rackets, bags and various tennis related equipment, and you can generally find him on wednesday coaching at the boat club! This is a good time to pick up a cheap racket if your using one of the spares.

3. Tennis Social events will be every fortnight, and Naomi will be organising these and i shall post them on the events section of the site and Aidan should keep you all updated via email. I believe this weeks social is Bowling =D, check the events page for the info!

4. The Ladder was started last week, but we are still taking down names for people who want to join it. If you wish to play on the ladder please contact either Aidan or I (Dave). Either via emails/on the forums/ on wednesday!

 And finally if anyone has any questions at all on the club, dont hesistate to fire an email off to us and to those people still wondering whether to join or not, we are still recruiting and its never too late! So get yourself down to the boat club! you wont regret it!

Well today was the great Freshers Bazaar! (Besides the fire alarm at 3pm!) Id like to thank James, Steven, Naomi, Mary-Louise, Mark, Andrew, and Aidan for helping out…even if some of you did just lounge around eating pizzas, the company was appreciated! oh and id like to say a real special thank you to….ME =D…id like to thank my agent, etc who all helped me reach such a pinacle of greatness…..oh and i really want world peace and extra dolphins please.

Secondly id like to say a big massive thank you to all the people that signed up, a mind boggling 132 of you! it was a very successful bazaar which in no way will contribute to a crazy night on the town haha. Sorry…i promise it will all go towards…err dolphins! Tennis playing dolphins… you may begin to wonder who let me loose on this tennis site….i wonder also..your not alone haha

Just to remind everyone that next week is the first week of tennis, for anyone who doesnt know where the Belfast Boat club is, Me and Naomi will be walking from the union down to the boat club next wednesday leaving about 1:30pm, and we will be there from around 1:20pm.

For anyone who doesnt currently own a racket, we will have a couple of spares for the first few weeks. Id strongly recommend buying your own racket as we wont always have spares and you dont want to be left out of the fun. The spares will be on a first come, first served basis. If there isnt enough we can perhaps create a rota on the day, but hopefully it wont come to that.

Heres a map to the Boat Club

Were still in negogiations about a further club night, and ill keep you all posted about it, so stay tuned!