British players shine at 2025 ITF Masters Tour World Team and Individual Championships in Turkey

Seniors

27/03/25 • 1 MINUTE READ

Great Britain’s 30-45 Seniors tennis players took centre stage last week at the ITF Masters Tour World Team and Individual Championships, held in Manavgat, Turkey.

In what was GB’s most successful campaign across these age groups, the Brits bought home a gold medal and three silvers in the team events, as well as a gold in one of the individual categories.

The GB Men’s 30 team – including Alex Ward, Mark Whitehouse, Toby Churchill and Andrew Higham – clinched the gold medal after going unbeaten across their five matches.

Having topped Group B with clean sweep victories against Canada and Turkmenistan, the Brits progressed to the knock-out rounds.

In the quarter and semi-finals Ward and Whitehouse’s impressive singles performances carried the team through against USA and Germany, before going on to close out the title with a resounding 3-0 win over India.

Their triumph was then followed by three silver medals in the Women’s 30 and 45 events as well as the Men’s 40.

The GB Women’s 30 side (Alexandra Walker, Ella Taylor, Lucy Brown and Jennifer Ren) finished top of their group and progressed to the 1st-3rd place play-offs against Germany and USA.

After securing a convincing 3-0 win over USA, the Brits were defeated in the title-decider against Germany – sealing a silver medal finish.

Leyla Ogan, Natalie Ackland, Mili Shah and Eilidh Smith led the GB Women’s 45 to a second place finish as well – beating strong Australian, Swedish, USA and French sides before losing 2-0 to Germany in the final.

The fifth seeded GB Men’s 40 side were also amongst the medal winners in Turkey as Simon Morris, Simon Roberts, Zane Cheeseman and Dan Cottier fought through a tough draw to make the final.

In the knock-out stages they won doubles deciders against fourth seeds Australia and third seeded Spain but were eventually defeated 2-1 by Italy in the final.

Across the rest of the week, the GB Women’s 40 and Men’s 35 teams finished in fifth place, while the Women’s 35 side came sixth.

In the Individual Championships, Britain’s Joe Cooper sealed a gold medal in the Men’s 35 doubles draw alongside Nikolai Soloviev.

Unseeded duo Cooper and Soloviev had a dream run to the title, knocking out all three of the top seeds from the quarter-final to the final.

The pair finished with a convincing 6-2, 6-2 victory over No.1 ranked side Kengo Iwasaka and Yuri Mijic in the final.

Cooper’s win sees him emulate his father Jasper, who won the Men’s 70 doubles World Championship in 2023.

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