17 Juin 2015

Rechtzeitig vor den Racketlon Swiss Open haben 62 Racketletinnen und Racketleten sich den letzten Schliff bei der WILSON Racketlon Night Tour vergangenen Samstag in Uster geholt. Allen voran der Turnierorganisator gleich selber: Nico Hobi spielte sich gegen Olaf Huber und Christian Schäfer (Bornze) souverän ins Finale durch, wo Lukas Spring auf ihn wartete. In einem sehr ausgeglichenen und äusserst spannenden Spiel konnte Hobi am Ende im Tennis noch aufholen und die Partie für sich gewinnen.

Bei den Frauen war das Finalspiel nicht weniger spannend. Auch hier hatte sich Runner Up Tanja Omlin einen leichten Vorsprung vor Tennis erspielen können. Jedoch reichte das gegen die solide Tennispartie von Nathalie Forrer am Ende um 3 Punkte nicht ganz zum Sieg. Esther Dübendorfer gewann das kleine Finale.

Bei den Herren B standen sich im Finale gleich die zwei Wildcard Players gegenüber: Philipp Peter (Badminton NLA) gegen Roli Langhart (Tischtennis NLC)! Ja, das ist im Racketlon möglich. Dementsprechend klar wurden auch die ersten 2 Disziplinen entschieden. Im Squash hatte dann Langhart die Nase auch noch vorne und konnte sich so den Grundstein zum Sieg legen. Jeremy Schmid wurde Dritter in diesem 15er Tableau.

Wichtig noch zu schreiben, dass unser Swiss Racketlon Federation Präsident in der dritten Runde im Gumiarm seine Nervenstärke nicht nur bei der Führung des Verbands zeigte! J

Bei den zwei 16er Tableaux bei den Herren C und D kam es ebenfalls zu einigen engen Kisten. Jedoch konnte Marcel Fässler das Finalspiel geben Andreas Neuweiler mit +9 Punkten im C gewinnen und Martin Zängeler gegen Derek Moniz sogar mit +21 vor Tennis im D.

Zu den Resultaten!

Eine weitere Siegerin stand nicht auf, sondern neben dem Platz. Ein herzliches Dankeschön an Ladina Ladner für die super Leitung des Turniers!

Es sind nun alle bereit für die Racketlon Swiss Open und warten gespannt auf das erste Schweizer Highlight dieser Saison. Teilnehmerrekord für das IWT Turnier ist schon mal garantiert! 

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.