Chris Doran and Sean Cullen are the student men’s doubles champions of Europe.

The Nottingham Trent University pair dropped only one set on their way to winning the title at the European University Sports Association Championships in Rotterdam.

They clocked up 3-0 victories over the universities of Zagreb (Croatia), Ljubljana (Slovenia) and Malta in the last 32, last 16 and quarter-finals respectively, before beating No 1 seeds from the Russian State University for the Humanities 3-1 in the semis.

That left the University of Bochum (Germany) in the final, and the British pair won 3-0 to maintain their record of never having been beaten as a doubles pair while playing for Nottingham Trent.

In the team competition, Doran and Cullen were joined by Daniel Lowe and finished top of their group by beating University of Montenegro (3-2), University Palacky (Czech Republic) 3-1, University of Geneva (Switzerland) 3-0 and University of Utrecht (Netherlands) 3-0.

However, they came up against a strong University of Zagreb team in the quarter-finals and lost 3-2, before claiming a fifth-place finish with a 3-0 win over the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

The women’s team consisted of Emma Vickers, Evie Collier and Georgina Barnes, while regular team member Alice Loveridge was missing as she was in Glasgow playing for Guernsey.

They were unable to progress beyond the group stages, despite winning their first game 3-1 against the University of Porto (Portugal), as they went on to be beaten by the Russian State University for the Humanities and Jan Dlugosz University of Czestochowa (Poland).

They clinched a 10th-place finish as a 3-0 play-off victory over University of Ljubljana was followed by a 3-1 defeat to University of Poitiers (France).

Vickers and Collier lost out at the quarter-final stage of the doubles. Having come from 2-0 down to beat University of Hannover (Germany) 3-2 in the last 16, they were beaten 3-1 by Jan Dlugosz University.

In the singles, Vickers lost in the third round, Barnes in the first and Collier in the second. Doran was defeated at the quarter-final stage, with Cullen going out in the first round and Lowe in the second.

By Paul Stimpson (July 29th, 2014)