The University of East London’s Men’s and Women’s 1st teams both recently started their seasons at the highest level of university tennis, the BUCS National/Premier Division.
The East London based side are a newly promoted team in the league and have been relishing the challenge of being the underdogs competing with the best the country has to be offer.
We spoke to Soumeya Anane who is the number one seeded player in the Women’s team, about her career in tennis that includes being ranked as high as number 640 in the world.
How it Began
Anane started playing sport at the age of three. Initially she was a footballer and played for the Birmingham Centre of Excellence. But she got into tennis when she added, “one of my primary school teachers recommended that I take tennis lessons and I went to Beechwood Tennis Club and I really enjoyed it. Then aged 16, I picked tennis over football.”
Career Highlights
The 28-year-old’s ranking in doubles of inside the world’s top 650 is her “greatest achievement” as well as winning two 15k doubles titles on the ITF (International Tennis Federation) Pro Circuit. Anane currently ranks at around 1,000 in the world.
London Life
She studies a master’s degree in Sport and Exercise Science with a concentration on Strength and Conditioning. On her decision to join UEL, she says, “I thought the course looked really good and I wanted to be in London. I saw there was a really good tennis programme and scholarship opportunities to carry on playing with my studies.”
This season so far has been difficult for the UEL team. They currently sit bottom of the National Division showing the quality there now is in university-level tennis. Anane plays as the first seed against the other university’s best players. It has been a challenge for her with many matches played inside on courts that make the ball move very fast. “I’m still getting used to indoors as I usually skip the indoor season as I’m better playing outside on the slower clay courts.”
Match Drama
Recently at the BUCS Tennis Super Weekend event held at the National Tennis Centre, where all Men’s and Women’s National Division teams are in attendance to play two matches, there was drama in Anane’s match.
In a tiebreak, with Anane on set point, the umpire called a serve from her Durham University opponent being out when the ball landed clearly in. This would have handed UEL the set however, sportingly Anane said to the umpire the ball was in and it was an ace. She overruled the umpire’s call handing Durham the point at a vital stage in the match. Anane and her doubles partner, Zeniece Charles-Hall, went on to lose the match.
On this incident Anane said “if it was close, I would have left it and thought ‘well the calls would even out because we would have a few calls against us’ however, it was so blatantly in I couldn’t just leave it!”
Covid-19’s Influence
Being an athlete was hard when lockdowns were affecting every part of daily life. On her time last year, she said, “it was very tough during the pandemic. I flew out to Antalya and moved to Turkey for three and a half months during the lockdown and played some tournaments”.
She added that, “The competition was very tough because at one point it was the only one running in the whole world.”
Future Aspirations
On her hopes for the next few years, Anane states, “I want to play full time for at least two years, I really enjoy competing and travelling and I want get my ranking as high as I possibly can.”
Images by kind permission Soumeya Anane/BUCs.
