09 Juin 2017

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

(The Swiss delegation)

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

Nicole Eisler

22 Mai 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

(Esther Dübendorfer and Nicolas Lenggenhager)