British Tennis Forum - Celebrating 20 Years!

Coup Droit wrote:

---

Just as an aside, I see that Felix Balshaw won M15 Dubrovnik

Felix (age 19) is the son of Iain Balshaw, ex England and Bath rugby player

Iain now lives in France and Felix plays for France but a possible one to poach ?

---

Just spotted this as I was checking back on the number of titles won by our players.  This is the information I provided on the Sharm thread in early February last year (hence the different age - he'll be 20 next month):

QR2:  (q2) Félix Balshaw (FRA (*)) WR 900 (CH = 892 last November) vs Barney Fitzpatrick UNR

(*) the son of the former England RU player, Iain, who was one of 19 England players who played during the win over Australia in the 2003 Rugby World Cup final in Sydney, coming on as a replacement in extra time.  He moved to Biarritz in 2009 to play club rugby for Biarritz Olympique & that's where young Felix, who's 18, grew up & obviously opted to take a leaf out of Evan Furness' book & play for his adopted homeland, though he'd have been not quite 3 when Iain made the move.  Our loss...   

He's currently at a career high of 523, so ranked too low to be considered even for a qWC at RG, but every time I see his name with "FRA" after it, I find myself wondering what, if anything, the LTA could do to tempt him to change his allegiance, especially given his father's background.    

Week 20 - from 18/05 :

Women's Singles

ITF W35 Estepona, Spain
Alicia Dudeney

Women's Doubles

ITF W75 Kosice, Slovakia
Madeleine Brooks ( & Irina Maria Bara, ROU )

ITF W35 Estepona, Spain
Alicia Dudeney ( & Ariana Arseneault, CAN )

Juniors

ITF J30 Newport, GB
BS: Casey Unitt (18)
GS: Isabel McLain (14)
BD: Henry Beer (18) & Alexander Winder (17)
GD: Rachael Szeto (17) & Yanziye ( Judy ) Zhang (14)

Week 22 - from 01/06 :

Men's Singles

ITF M15 Lakewood, CA, USA
Oliver Bonding (18)

Men's Doubles

ATP Challenger 125 Birmingham, GB
Ben Jones & Joshua Paris

ITF M15 Monastir, Tunisia
Matthew Rankin & Marcus Walters

Women's Doubles

ITF W75 Caserta, Italy
Freya Christie & Eden Silva

Juniors

ITF J30 Kampala, Uganda
BD: Harry Cornhill (17) ( & Prakaash Sarran, IND )

ITF J30 Bizerte, Tunisia
BD: Toby Ward (18) ( & Francisco Sardinha, POR )

French Open Wheelchair

Men's Doubles
Alfie Hewitt & Gordon Reid

Junior Boys Singies
Matthew Knoesen (13)

Junior Boys Doubles
Matthew Knoesen (13) ( & Alexander Lantermann, BEL )

David Stevenson and Freya C both near the top of the winners list for the year now

Name	Titles
Alicia Dudeney	7
Finn Murgett	6
Charles Broom	5
David Stevenson	5
Freya Christie	5

-- Edited by JonH on Sunday 14th of June 2026 10:47:23 PM