News

Don’t burn your fingers!

Already on their way to sunny Belgium to the legendary King of Rackets last weekend a Swiss player who don’t want to be named burnt his fingers on his coffee. An omen that it’s going to be hot in Oudenaarde and that players from other countries shouldn’t mess with the Swiss!

Especially, Esther Dübendorfer was on fire by winning 4 medals!!! She won in the women +40 (first time victory over Anita Voelkel), +45 (first time victory over Jo Shelley) and also in Women B Doubles pairing up with singles opponent Voelkel. And as if 3 golden medal were not enough, she also won bronze with Ulrich Schlepphorst in Mixed B Doubles.

Another gold medal was won by Julien Ming and Andrea Bellino in Men D/E doubles and bronze in the same category by Michel Gasser with his French partner Wilfred Leguay-Barrault.

Nicole Eisler and Margaux Ranjbar were another successfull Swiss-French pair. They won the bronze medal as well in the Women Doubles category.

And I’m sure that Marcel Fässler and Patrick Lorenz would have won bronze as well if they didn’t have to cancel their small final match due to an early flight.

Fortunately, as the Swiss delegation was quite big (as always at one of the best tournaments of the year), I don’t write about every single player. I just would like to mention that some of them were also quite on fire to hit the dancefloor! ;-) I even dare to say that it was absolutely world! J

kor swiss delegation

(The Swiss delegation)

It was obvious that they had to cool down from time to time with a delicous Belgium beer! ;-)

Nicole Eisler

English Open 2017

2 Swiss players – 2 Swiss titles – this is called efficiency! :-)

According to the organisers the tournament should have been one of the 3 biggest tournaments of the year. Unfortunately, not only many of the Swiss players missed it, but also hardly any players from other countries were there either. Nevertheless, 99 racket fanatics were fighting for different titles and that does not mean that there were just boring matches.

One of these fanatics was Nicolas Lenggenhager. He would had loved to compete in the elite category but he did not get one of the wildcards, which went to France and England instead. In the B draw he impressively proved himself to be the right candidate for a wildcard next time: He reached the finals without even having touched his tennis racket in the first two rounds. In the semi-final and the final it was a bit more interesting, but no-one was able to stop him from winning his title.

In Men’s A double, he paired up with the French Sylvain Ternon – another strong badminton player. Even though they only won their last match, they never really had opponents who were able to challenge them in badminton.

Esther Dübendorfer once again played with her partner from England, Jordan Dainty, in the Mixed doubles. Although they had to go through difficult phases in the finals, the pair successfully secured their 2nd title together after having won the Malta Open in autumn last year.

Dübendorfer also fought for gold in the +45 category. She had to be happy with silver in the end though, as Jo Shelley, with the home ground advantage, was just better on that day.

Apart from the two titles, the players’ party in the Bounce PingPong was another highlight of the weekend. The perfect combination of a restaurant, a bar and table tennis tables all at the same place – a dream of every Racketlon player.

Esther Dübendorfer

img 7497

(Esther Dübendorfer and Nicolas Lenggenhager)

Klein, aber fein

Dass viele Racketlonspieler auch im Tennis-Interclub engagiert sind, bekam die Night Tour in Kriens dieses Jahr ein wenig zu spüren. Es fanden nicht ganz so viele SpielerInnen wie gewohnt den Weg in die Innerschweiz. Sehr erfreulich war jedoch, dass zahlreiche neue Gesichter in Kriens begrüsst werden durften. Das kleine Teilnehmerfeld tat der Stimmung und der Turnierqualität jedoch keinen Abbruch.

Zur Entdeckung des Turniers wurde Stefan Faschauner, der Sieger in der Kategorie C. Faschauner stammt aus Graz und hat schon in Österreich Racketlon gespielt. Sein erstes Turnier in der Schweiz zeigte sein Potenzial auf. Ein neues Gesicht, dass die einheimische Racketlonszene bereichern könnte. Man darf auf seine nächsten Auftritte gespannt sein. Im Final stand ihm mit Marcel Weber ebenfalls ein Newcomer gegenüber, der jedoch die Überlegenheit von Faschauner anerkennen musste. Rang drei sicherte sich Yves Gerster.

In der Kategorie B fuhr Marcel Fässler nach Startschwierigkeiten letztlich einen souveränen Sieg ein. Er liess Routinier Beat Ladner im Final keine Chance. Das kleine Final konnte die Nachwuchshoffnung Léon Mamié gegen Verbandspräsident Karim Hanna knapp für sich entscheiden. Die Fortschritte von Mamié sind von Turnier zu Turnier deutlich erkennbar.

Dass Seriensieger Patrick Lorenz in der Kategorie A auch in Kriens obenaus schwang, darf wahrlich nicht als Überraschung bezeichnet werden. Dahinter lieferten sich die Clubkollegen Danijel Batinic und Stefan Imhof einen harten Kampf um Rang zwei, diesmal mit dem glücklicheren Ende für Batinic, nachdem in Langnau noch Imhof das Rennen gemacht hatte. Bemerkenswert die Aussage von Stefan: «Wenn die Resultate im Racketlon immer entsprechend den Erwartungen ausfallen würden, müsste man ja gar nicht mehr spielen.» Wie wahr - Abweichungen von 10 oder 15 Punkten kann es in einer Disziplin immer geben. Endresultate lassen sich zum Glück nicht im Voraus berechnen. Alle Resultate findet ihr hier.

Mit Spannung sehen wir den Einzelmeisterschaften in Uster am 10. Juni entgegen. Dieses Jahr zum ersten Mal mit Stärkeklassen und somit für alle SpielerInnen ein Muss. Bereits zwei Wochen später folgt das Swiss Open in Schlieren.

Beat Ladner

13th Czech Open

One of the favourite FIR tournaments of the year, partly because of its idyllic location, but also because of the all-in-one concept, with the hotel and sports centre being in the same complex, attracted only three Swiss Racketlon addicts, this year.
 
Our Mens hero, Beni Hampl, was seeded 3, with a scheduled semi-final against possible future World No. 1 Lukas Windischberger. However, he found in the quarter final against ex-PSA player Dan Busby, after the expected good start in table tennis to (nearly) neutralise the damage he was handed out in squash, that Dan also plays a fairly mean game of badminton. The 21-8 loss was just a little bit too much to claw back in tennis, and so Beni had to be satisfied with joint 5th place.
 
In Mens doubles, Beni paired up with Dan to make a formidable combination, but had the bad luck of effectively having to play the final in the first round! Slovenian star Janez Makovec has not played for two years, and so has no ranking points, but that does not mean he is not one of the best players in the world, and teaming up with World No. 4 Morten Jaksland, posed an unstoppable combination, with the Swiss-British team only barely winning in their primary sports, table tennis and squash. Nevertheless, losing by only 11 points to the later gold medalists was an impressive achievement.
 
Simon Zurschmiede competed in a different open singles category, Mens C. After suffering defeat in the first two matches, he came into his own and thrashed Robert Hammer by winning all three sports, not even needing his tennis racket. Unfortunately, there was less success in Mens B doubles, where he paired up with the Russian Sergei Seregin.
 
The serial Racketlon fanatic Graham King ended up playing in the more difficult classes with the “junior seniors”, as there were too few +60 registrations, and the +55 draw was full. He also came up short as a result of the scheduling difficulties and ended up playing all five of his singles matches on one day. Despite winning all but one of his table tennis matches, and most of his squash matches, there were no singles medals, but instead an early bedtime, being too exhausted to take consolation in the Prague party scene. At least he picked up a silver in his seniors doubles event as a consolation.
 
Graham King

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FSR-Rankings courants (1er novembre 2020)

Messieurs
1. Benjamin Gränicher
2. Cédric Junillon
3. Patrick Casanova-Lorenz
4. Christian Schäfer
5. Yannic Andrey
6. Nicolas Lenggenhager
7. Magnus Ekstrand
8. Michael Strässle
9. Nico Hobi
10. Niki Schärrer

Dames
1. Nicole Eisler
2. Valeria Pelosini
3. Adeline Kilchenmann

Les rankings actuels vous trouvez ici.