The IC of GB takes home the Gottfried von Cramm Trophy 2025

The Frankfurt Tennisclub 1914 Palmengarten was the venue at the end of August for the second Gottfried von Cramm Trophy, a team competition in which one women's singles, one men's singles and a mixed doubles are held in each match. While the two singles are played normally, the mixed doubles is a championship tiebreak. In each match between two teams, the winner can reach a maximum of 3 points. For example, if a team wins both singles but loses the championship tiebreak, 2 points go to the winner and 1 point to the loser.

In Frankfurt, five teams from six nations participated: Spain, Great Britain, Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland in conjunction with Canada. Due to the odd number of teams, the format required all teams to play everyone else.

After three rounds, the teams from Spain and Great Britain were in the lead. In the last game of the tournament (against Germany), the British took the points to pass Spain and win the trophy. Below is the final ranking and the individual players:

1. Great Britain (Emily Arbuthnott, Pedro Ocana)
2. Spain (Isabel Fernandez, Carlos Garcia Villanieva)
3. Germany (Natali Gumbrecht, Tim Richter)
4. Luxembourg (Tatiana Silbereisen)
5. Switzerland / Canada (Kasia Poplawski)

WEDNESDAY REPORT FROM IC WORLDWIDE FINALS

An exciting day with some extremely close matches that now put an interesting twist on the possible winners.

In the match up between the top seeded Italy and The USA it was a close and in many ways a considerable upset based on ITF Junior rankings. After the singles the it was 3 -1 to USA with the USA winning both girls matches. The result was then decided when the USA girls also came in with a doubles win that their boys also managed later. Congratulations go to the USA on beating an IC Italy team that had all players ranked in the ITF top 200 Juniors.

In what was an even closer match Uruguay eventually came through against Japan. After being 3-1 down in the singles Uruguay rallied to take both girls and boys doubles but only with both going to third set tie breaks. This meant the match would be decided on a mixed doubles which Uruguay won in what is always an exciting and tense match and enjoyable for spectators.

The third match between India and South Africa was two teams who had so far had close matches but unfortunately being on the losing side. The singles matches came through at 2 matches each but only after several going to tie breaks. This meant the doubles could determine the result and indeed it did with South Africa winning both to go 4-2 up and win the tie.

The teams now have the following wins:

USA 3 Uruguay 2 Italy 2 Japan 1 South Africa 1 India 0 - see results table below

If USA win their last two matches then they will be the champions but if they were to lose any both Uruguay and Italy could also be in a position to also possibly win. With USA and Uruguay scheduled to meet on the final Friday the result of the tournament will be almost certainly still be open until after that day’s play.  Following on from the days play, the players were treated to a kimono experience where they were dressed up in the traditional kimono by students from Yamano Beauty College.  Photos from the days play and the Kimono experience can be viewed here

Thursdays matches:

Italy v Japan

USA v South Africa

Uruguay v India

IC junior result 2018_10102018.xlsx