Wimbledon all over again for Andrew Castle

Monday, 3rd November 2008.

Former British number one tennis star Andrew Castle is the seventh celebrity to be voted off Strictly Come Dancing.

The sportsman-turned-TV presenter coincidentally lasted the same number of weeks as his GMTV co-host Kate Garraway.

After performing a samba, the combination of the viewer votes and judges' scores left Andrew and his partner Ola Jordan in the bottom two with Heather Small and Brian Fortuna on Sunday night.

Both couples had to perform a second time for the judges' deciding vote.

Of Andrew and Ola's dance the judges said:

Arlene Phillips: "It's really odd but I feel like you're in the frozen food aisle and I want you to get out into exotic food. You just need to unleash the beast, just let it go. You just held a little back." Score: 5.

Len Goodman: "The key to the samba is you've got to get that bounce out. Instead of Andrew Castle you've got to be more like a bouncy castle. Sometimes you get the wrong dance the wrong week and the samba for me is the hardest of the all the Latin dances. It travels, it's got changes of rhythm. You know, if you'd got one of the dances that you're more assured with I think you would've done much better. But all in all I thought it was quite a good job and well done." Score: 7.

Bruno Tonioli: "Andrew, the samba should have the excitement of the Brazilian grand prix and this was a Brazilian grand flop: no bounce, poor hip action, heavy footed. It didn't work, it was all heavy and flat." Score: 5.

Craig Revel Horwood: "It was all very taut and tense for my liking. You looked extremely nervous as well halfway through it for some reason. I think basically it went downhill after the opening which was a paso opening, very oddly. The best part about that whole dance, I have to say, was your rave step." Score: 4.

The judges gave them a total of 21 out of 40 for their performance.

After the dance-off, Heather and Brian (dancing a cha cha cha) were saved by Craig, Arlene and Bruno who all voted for them to stay in the competition, leaving head judge Len to comment on the couples rather than vote.

Len said: "I agreed with the other judges."

After Andrew and Ola's elimination, Andrew said: "Can I just take a second here to thank everybody on Strictly Come Dancing for taking care of us amateur dancers, and for the person who's as beautiful as she is talented and generous too, Ola."

Check out Andrew's Strictly story...

Photo: BBC