The Aberdeen Cup was an annual exhibition

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

tournament held between national teams representing England and Scotland. It was hosted in the Aberdeen Exhibition Centre in

Aberdeen Aberdeen ( ; ; ) is a port city in North East Scotland, and is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, third most populous Cities of Scotland, Scottish city. Historically, Aberdeen was within the historic county of Aberdeensh ...

, Scotland. The tournament was held in 2005 and 2006, but there has been no indication that the tournament will be played again.

History

The involvement of Andy Murray, who rose into the top 100 in the ATP rankings in 2005, was largely the source of public interest in the competition. The inaugural tournament, held in that year, was won by Scotland. This event was the only time that Murray played

Greg Rusedski Gregory Rusedski (born 6 September 1973) is a Canadian-British former professional tennis player. He was the British No. 1 in 1997, 1999 and 2006, and reached the ATP Tour, ATP ranking of world No. 4 for periods from 6 October 1997 to 12 October ...

; they never met on the ATP tour. This was the first time that Andy and his brother

Jamie Murray Jamie Robert Murray (born 13 February 1986) is a British professional tennis player who specialises in doubles. He is a seven-time Grand Slam (tennis), major doubles champion (five in mixed doubles and two in men's doubles), a Davis Cup winne ...

played doubles as seniors. The following year, Scotland successfully defended their title amidst criticism from Murray regarding the court surface and the ticket prices, as well as low attendance rates compared to the previous year, and the perceived lack of quality English players for future events. The 2005 tournament was broadcast live on

Sky Sports Sky Sports is a group of British broadcasting of sports events, subscription sports channels operated by the satellite television, satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television ...

, but in 2006, only highlights were shown on Sky Sports.

Format

The Scotland team was captained by

Andy Murray Sir Andrew Barron Murray (born 15 May 1987) is a British former professional tennis player and coach. He was ranked as the List of ATP number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professio ...

, with

leading the England side. The tournament was held in a similar form to a

Davis Cup The Davis Cup is the premier international team event in men's tennis. It is organised by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and contested annually between teams from over 150 competing countries, making it the world's largest annual ...

match. There were rubbers in both

singles Singles are people not in a committed relationship. Singles may also refer to: Film and television * ''Singles'' (miniseries), a 1984 Australian television series * ''Singles'' (1992 film), written and directed by Cameron Crowe * ''Singles'' ...

and doubles play. Unlike the Davis Cup, there were also male and female junior players taking part, with each of their rubbers worth half that of a senior rubber, and one ladies player on each team. Furthermore, with the exception of the 'headline' matches, between the two team captains, senior matches were only two sets long, with a 1–1 tie settled by tie-break. The junior matches were played over four games (see: ''

Tennis score The tennis scoring system is a standard widespread method for scoring tennis matches, including pick-up games. Some tennis matches are played as part of a tournament, which may have various categories, such as singles and doubles. The great maj ...

'').

Results

2005

Saturday 26 November

Sunday 27 November

2006

Saturday 25 November

Sunday 26 November

References

External links

* Tennis tournaments in Scotland Sports competitions in Aberdeen Recurring sporting events established in 2005 Recurring events disestablished in 2006 2005 in Scottish sport 2006 in Scottish sport {{tennis-competition-stub