The north-west of the Meadows is always filled with the sounds of shoes screeching off hard courts as players dash to return a dropshot, or the bounce of tennis balls off rackets as a first serve is taken. Although they are open to the public, the Edinburgh University Lawn Tennis Club (EULTC) reserves these courts for play throughout the week and can often be found there putting on a show for passers-by.
One of those athletes is fourth-year chemistry student Emily Schuller, co-President of the EULTC, who sat down with The Student to discuss what it takes to make BUCS for the university team. Playing competitively starting only age 12, she came into university with years of competitive tennis experience behind her. She made it into a lower BUCS team in first year, before eventually working her way to the higher teams and into the role of co-President in 2026. In EULTC BUCS, there are but five men’s and four women’s teams, totaling to about 70 tennis players. Though this may seem quite small, the more players there are, the more resources have to be shared between them for training and competitions.
And with the start of a new academic year, comes the start of a new team and new people. When it’s tryout time, Emily understands exactly what is happening in the minds of the rookie players even as she now finds herself on the other side of the panel alongside the team captains, being a judge, rather than the judged.
Nothing about trying out for BUCS is simple. Even the opening of sign-ups for tryouts comes with a countdown as spots are limited and it’s first-come, first-serve. The first round of tennis trials takes place the Saturday of welcome week and involves six slots of twelve players at a time. By the second round, fewer than half from the first remain. Judged across a range of criteria, the prominent ones are matchplay (ability to win points) and technique. From this, players are awarded a score out of ten, then used to create a ranking system. The top players make it onto the team and the ranking is carried forward into the semester. Out of the 72 people who tried out this year, only 10 new players were selected (that’s a less than 15% chance for the mathematically challenged).
After making the team, rookies may mistakenly think that they can finally relax. This is not the case. Though the hardest is over, across the first two training sessions, players are observed in their games against the others in order to adjust the team-wide ranking. Three to four weeks later, another re-ranking takes place. And then again in January.
Emily insists it’s not all as scary and tough as it is made out to be though. She points out that “rankings are just for ego” and that the ambiance on the team is not even just non-toxic, but welcoming and friendly. On the commute to away games, she says, teammates spend a lot of time with each other, creating a closeness that competition can’t erode.
“Tennis Court in dark and light green and line marking” by Soft Surfaces Ltd is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
