Women off the sidelines in time-honoured tennis tour

For the first time ever, women are joining their male counterparts on an 85-year-old tennis tour that climaxes in a showdown between Cambridge/Oxford and Harvard/Yale.

Begun in 1921, the biennial Prentice Cup is the oldest international, inter-collegiate amateur tennis competition in the world, but has traditionally been for men only.

Now the ladies have finally been given a chance to take part. For the first time this year a full women's tour is underway. It will culminate this week in the first battle on British soil for the Seabright Cup - a women's version of the Prentice original.

And organisers hope the new event will improve Oxford and Cambridge's chances of clinching their first victory since 2000.

Although a women's match has been contested once before, as an experiment in the US two years ago, this is the first time a visiting women's team has toured alongside the men in the build-up to the grand finale at Wimbledon.

Cambridge student Amani Khalifa, 22, will lead the British women's team at the All-England Club on 10 August. The Downing College law graduate, is relishing the prospect.

"It's certainly a great honour and I'm very pleased the event is happening," she said. "The last event was really just a match weekend; there was no structured tour as such. Now the women's event is really beginning to take form and this is a key time in its development."

The Prentice Cup alternates between the All-England Lawn Tennis Club and the Seabright Lawn Tennis and Cricket Club in New Jersey. The tourists spend six weeks building up to the main event by travelling around the host nation playing various local teams.

In recent years the Americans have dominated the event, triumphing on their home soil in 2004 and at Wimbledon in 2002. By contrast, Cambridge/Oxford have not won on their home turf since 1970, although they proved victorious in the United States in both 1996 and 2000.

Tony Billington, Chairman of the event's British Committee, believes the Cambridge/Oxford team will put up a strong fight this year, however.

"I rate our chances as good," he said. "We have got a strong team. With the help of the coach they will come well prepared.

"The Americans are still strong and have to be favourites, but we have got an exceptional chance this year. We have also got a very strong women's team although the Americans are also likely to be very strong on that front."

The event will last from 10 to 12 August.