Loughborough Students Tennis Club aced their way into the record books by breaking the Guinness World Record the number of participants in an exhibition match.
It took 58 keen tennis players to surpass the previous benchmark of 50, which they completed with great gusto between 7am and 7pm on the hard-courts of Loughborough University’s Dan Maskell Tennis Centre.
After a successful year from the Loughborough Students Tennis Club, who achieved two Gold medals in the BUCS trophy and a Men’s Silver in the BUCS Championships, it was no surprise that all the players were fired up for the record breaking attempt.
With the changeovers at every 45 minutes, there was enough time to witness some refreshingly exciting tennis before the next set of people graced the courts with their monster serves and their ruthless ground-strokes and volleys.
The event, sponsored by Loughborough fish and chip shop ‘Trawlers Catch’, was in aid of Childreach International. It also saw great interest from the local press and many people outside the university.
Event organiser PhD student and team player James Henderson told Label Online: “The few of us who arranged this signed up through Rag to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in the summer, so it’s a fundraising attempt to try and raise as much money through the charities we are supporting.
“Childreach support some of the poorest children in the world in areas like Tanzania, India, other places in Africa, as well as territories in Pakistan and also Bangladesh. It only takes a little amount of money to actually support a child per month through health care and bit of education and generally improving their quality of life.”
As a Loughborough tennis second team player Henderson wanted the event to be “mass participation” rather than being available to a “few team players”.
He added: “It was great fun seeing so many different people support the event, including a wide range of abilities and ages (including 10-50+yr olds!)”
So far Henderson and the team have raised about £1500 each and hope to raise £2500 and the world record breaking success most definitely helped aid funds.
“I just wanted to do something rather than in England or Great Britain because we have it so much easier than some people. I took it into consideration how other people live really.”
On how it feels to be a world record breaker Henderson added: “Well it's all in theory at the moment we haven’t officially awarded yet but I'm more proud of the club pulling together and raising a large amount for charity more than the record itself.
“Especially as it's helping those a lot less fortunate than ourselves.”
