Kings and Queens of Rackets

09 Juin 2015

With the legendary King of Rackets we break the tradition and will report the international news in English from now on. German will be the language for tournaments in the German speaking part and French for tournaments in the Western part of Switzerland. Swiss Open, Swiss Championships and the league matches will be the only bilingual news. It is fair for all parts of Switzerland and as sport connects people we should all work on our language skills. :-)

The tournament in sunny Belgium was, as we are traditionally used to, well organised. The organizers of the King of Rackets are outdoing themselves year after year and the 24th edition saw improved badminton conditions on a special centre court mat and live streaming from all four centre courts.

The (traditionally :-() small Swiss team (for the first time more women than men) came home with 4 medals and some excellent wins though. Parallel to Timea Bacsinszky’s and Stanislas Wawrinka’s successes in Paris our two elite players were on the winning track as well. For Benjamin Hampl, it was the first 1st round victory ever in the men elite draw. With an outstanding badminton match he won against Jack Broe Larsen from Denmark. Due to an injury his next round opponent had to cancel the match and Hampl gained experience playing a quarters final in the elite draw. Even though Thorsten Deck from Germany was a number too big, Hampl could win table tennis.

More familiar with elite matches is Nicole Eisler who proved that she is stronger than ever. With a comfortable win in the first round and a thrilling match (more for the opponent) against Danish rising player Line Irby Norregaard she reached the semi finals. Reigning World Champion Zuzana Kubanova (CZE) is undefeated for over two years and was just too good for Eisler. Unfortunately, Eisler was also defeated in a very tough bronze medal match by Amke Fischer (GER), though she did, with her partner Marina Mezentzeva (RUS), get her revenge against Fischer the day before in the semifinals of the womens doubles on the way to win the silver medal!

Two other medals in the doubles competition were won by Graham King with his partner Steve Rayson (NED), our experienced doubles team (silver), and bronze for our rookies Esther Dübendorfer and Benjamin Hampl in the Mixed Doubles B draw. For Dübendorfer especially, that is a great success, as it was her première at international tournaments abroad. She also finished 5th in the 24 Women B draw! What a great start! Tanja Omlin in the same draw was a bit unlucky. She had to play against later winner in the first round, but could win some consolation matches afterwards.

We almost take it for granted that our (Graham) King himself wins a medal in the Seniors +55 category. He only got defeated by the racketlon legends Peter Sakovics and Joachim Gersdorf and won bronze! Keep on the solid performance! Swiss racketlon federation is proud of every single medal! :-)

Last but not least, senior national team player Susan Rutschmann finished 4th in the Women +45 and Jürg Herren won some disciplines in a strong Men B draw.

The biggest racketlon event of the year so far is in the books and we are already looking forward to the 25th anniversary next year in Oudenaarde and of course Swiss Open soon.

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