Danish nightmare

13 Juin 2016

Last weekend in Belgium at the 25th King of Rackets, Patrick Lorenz and Benjamin Hampl destroyed the number one seeded Morten Jaksland and Kresten Hougaard’s hope of winning the Men A Elite Doubles. In a thrilling match, our underestimated, amazing Swiss won the gummiarm point in the semis! This led to a broken racket of the Danish Dynamite and the unexpected Swiss silver medal!

Hampl – the Dane killer ;) – also proved himself to be worthy of what’s written on paper. Our new international top ten player beat English Ray ‚Balou’ Jordan in the first round and then, after losing his second round match against rising star and ex-PSA player Dan Busby (UK) by a handful of points, went on to defeat Will Coley (another Brit!) in the consolation match to finish 7th.

Patrick Lorenz was a bit unlucky with the Men B draw, as his first round match was against 2012 Seniors World Champion Adolphe Fernandez-Diez from Belgium, who proved far too hot to handle for all of his opponents, easily winning gold. However, after his early exit, Lorenz lost no more, demonstrating he will soon be playing at Men Elite level. To compensate for this disappointment, he had another chance in Mixed B Doubles and took it! Together with Esther Dübendorfer he won bronze, only missing the finals by a whisker!

Only one medal wasn’t enough for Esther Dübendorfer - she also won silver in +45, after beating all of her opponents apart from the World No. 3 Barbara Capper!!!

Another bronze was won  in the Seniors +45 Doubles by our reliable medal winner Graham King (of Rackets) with Dany Lessard who came all the way from Canada. His Seniors singles events were less successful, also falling victim to Adolphe Fernandez-Diez in the +45, and to ex Russian national badminton player Maxim Levitim in the +50.

Our other elite player (Women A), Nicole Eisler, proved that she is still getting stronger. She had to face World No. 3 Amke Fischer in the quarters and in a closely contested match got her best result against her to date, only losing towards the end of tennis.

Together with Hampl she tested her mixed doubles skills! They were only outgunned by Seehofer/Windischberger from Austria, showing they are ready for the Doubles World Championships in Copenhagen this summer.

In Men C, Patrick Bürgi also exited in the first round, after narrowly losing, despite a very strong start in table tennis, by a mere 4 points against the experienced Erik Roelofsen from Holland.

The luck of the Irish wasn’t quite with Susan Rutschmann, who dropped in for a day while “in transit”. After being paired off in Mixed B Doubles with her partner from Limerick, she had to be content with having a lot of fun, instead of going home with any silverware.

Even though the weather wasn’t as nice as we normally come to expect at King of Rackets, it was another successful Racketlon weekend in Oudenaarde. As always, very well organised, experienced and friendly staff, professional squash referees and a great atmosphere! Definitively worth going again next year!

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