Sports editor Saoirse Byrne wraps up the opening day of the 2025 London Varsity Series.
Varsity 2025 kicked off yesterday in spectacular fashion, featuring impressive wins and a few close shaves. KCL heads into Day 2 with an early 3-1 lead. Here’s a quick recap of how the fixtures panned out:
Tennis
2024’s Sports Club of the Year opened the series with a thrilling display at Lee Valley Hockey and Tennis Centre on Friday morning, rounding off one of their most successful seasons in years with a Varsity win that has been five years in the making. The men’s and women’s doubles provided a strong start, with Hanning Jiang and team captain Natalie Wagner demonstrating their dominance over a capable UCL pairing, ultimately giving the first victory of the series to KCL.
The men’s doubles proved to be a real nailbiter, with the match lasting around 3 hours and reaching several tiebreaker moments. Michael Clarkson and Ben Rodgers – who remains unbeaten at Lee Valley this year – showed unwavering determination, coming back from being 2-5 down early on to pulling off an 11-9 win, much to the delight of the sold-out crowd.
A hard fought Women’s Singles match ended in disappointment for Sophie Sueppel, but patience and determination yielded victory in the Men’s match, with Men’s 1s captain Ali Hassan going point-for-point with his UCL opponent Tom Skinner before finally pulling ahead to win the first set 8-6. Skinner came back strong and took the second set, but Hassan’s spectacular perseverance paid off, clawing his way to an 11-9 win in the third set after being 3-7 down. His thrilling success meant that KCL’s first victory of the series was in the bag, and KCL Tennis could consider themselves vindicated after last year’s disappointment.
Though by this point the fixture had already been won, club President Ann Maria Muuli and Lucas Urquiza didn’t step off the gas and provided a definitely victory lap for the club in the mixed doubles, winning both sets comfortably.
Cycling
KCL Cycling, upon their return to Varsity after several years, couldn’t quite clinch the win against a determined UCL side. Despite the loss, they have much to be proud of, securing more podium finishes than their opponents: James Lilley, Alex Bumpers, and Stuart Baritsch finished 2nd, 4th, and 5th in the Men’s competition, and in the Women’s race Lisa Shi and Ellen Philips took home 2nd and 3rd place. Though the points may have gone to UCL, KCL Cycling have shown the depth of talent in their squad, and will no doubt be a strong contender for next year.
Hockey (GKT)
Further success came for GKT teams in the Medic’s Hockey, where the Women’s team pulled off a long-awaited victory. After a strong start and a goal in the first half, the game began to heat up – ‘we lost our heads a bit, we let the crowds get to us!’ However, a second goal from a ‘crazy angle’ kept GKT firmly in the game. The victory was secured after a spectacular game-winner from Lucy Perkins in her final Varsity match, assisted by captain Carys Doggart immediately after returning to the pitch after a yellow card.
GKT Men’s Hockey ended the day with celebrations of their own, rounding off an up-and-down season with a win that keeps the Varsity cup in their possession for another year. The celebrations continued from the pitch all the way to Guy’s Bar, with King’s and GKT heading into Day 2 with a solid lead.
Varsity 2025: Up Next
Today the series continues at Lee Valley with KCL Hockey, who will be hoping to put last year’s disappointments behind them. Tickets for all upcoming Varsity fixtures are still available at KCLSU.org, so there’s still plenty of time to come along and support your KCL sport’s teams!
