IWT French Open
06. MĂ€rz 2022
This weekend, the 1st international tournament of this year took place and Swiss delegation of
8 players travelled to Paris Montreuil to compete. When they returned, they not only had a bunch of sweaty shirts in their luggage, but also 5 medals!
Traditionally, the tournament started with the doubles competition. Nicolas Lenggenhager,
who recently reached the top 10 in the world singles rankings, played for the first time in
Mixed A with Nicole Eisler. In their first match, everything went according to plan. In the
final against the pair from the host country (Myriam Enmer and Damian André) the opposite
was unfortunately the case. However, they were happy to win silver on their joint debut.
Lenggenhager then also took bronze in the men's doubles together with Matthew Davidson
from England. This in a close match against the two Frenchmen Laurent Cocriamont and
Anthony Duthuillé.
The other pairs with Swiss participation unfortunately did not get beyond the preliminary
round matches.
In the singles, the Swiss delegation picked up three medals - three times bronze. Nicole Eisler
showed a good tournament and was not far away from the winner Anna-Klara Ahlmer from
Sweden with -9. In the small final against elite newcomer Aurélie Haurant from France,
however, Eisler left nothing to be desired.
Youngster Lucas Mateo Moreno followed suit and also won bronze in the Junior U16 by a
large margin. Graham King also showed an extremely solid game in the Seniors +50 small final. Congratulations to both for bronze.
In the Men's elite, there were 2 Swiss players at the start. Oliver BuÌhler and Nicolas
Lenggenhager both won their first match in the 16-player tableau; however, they lost their
2nd match and consequently met in the match for 7th and 8th place. An exciting match:
BuÌhler could have won table tennis after getting to 20-all, but too many unforced errors scuppered that. Lenggenhager was able to capitalise on his badminton strengths to extend his lead; and again in squash. Now Lenggenhager needed just 5 points in tennis - which is not the easiest task against tennis specialist BuÌhler. BuÌhler made a solid start without any mistakes. As time went on, however, a few small errors crept in, which led to points and victory for Lenggenhager.
Manfred Grab (Men B), Valentin Henin (Men C) and Benoit Truc (Men D) also recorded
victories in their tableaux.
A successful weekend with fair games, smiling faces, exciting matches, peaceful dancing, sweating people and good conversations in all languages. Pure Racketlon!
NE
