The Aberdeen Cup was an annual exhibition

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

tournament held between national teams representing

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. It was hosted in the Aberdeen Exhibition Centre in

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

, 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 British and Canadian former tennis player. He was the British No. 1 in 1997, 1999 and 2006, and reached the ATP ranking of world No. 4 for periods from 6 October 1997 to 12 October 1997 and from 25 ...

; 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 Scottish professional tennis player from Scotland who specialises in doubles. He is a seven-time Grand Slam doubles champion (five in mixed doubles and two in men's doubles), a Davis Cup win ...

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 subscription sports channels operated by the satellite pay television company Sky Group (a division of Comcast), and is the dominant subscription television sports brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland. It ...

, 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 professional tennis player from Scotland. He was ranked world No. 1 by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for 41 weeks, and finished as the year-end No. 1 in 2016. Murray h ...

, 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 run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and is contested annually between teams from competing countries in a knock-out format. It is described by the organis ...

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 majo ...

'').

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