08 Août 2022

A delegation of eleven Swiss players made the journey to the Roehampton Club in London to compete in the only racketlon tournament with lawn tennis. And with a total of nine medals won, the tournament was very successful for Switzerland. The two gold medals were won by Nicolas Lenggenhager and his Swedish partner René Lindberg in the elite doubles and Dara and Beat Ladner in the mixed B doubles. The four silver medals went to Nicolas Lenggenhager in the men's A, Patrick Bürgi with his Australian partner Leigh Sands in the men's B doubles, Esther Dübendorfer in the senior women's +40 and Beat Ladner/Giovanni Gentile in the senior men's +45 doubles. Congratulations!

But the London Open is not all about winning medals: Playing in a noble English sports club with top grass tennis courts must have been a super experience for everyone. As usual, the fun factor was not neglected either, which is worth a lot. So, at least from the author's point of view, it was a very successful weekend.

From an international point of view, the men's elite categories were won by Koen Hageraats from the Netherlands, who beat Lenggenhager in the final, and the women's elite categories were won by Anna-Klara Ahlmer from Sweden, who beat Myriam Enmer from France in the final.

PB

15 Juillet 2022

A small but fine Swiss delegation competed in Racketlon in Riga. Unfortunately, Giovanni Gentile and Manfred Grab had to cancel at short notice and could not be there. Michael Strässle and Christian Schäfer could get a third place in the strong doubles B. However, the second player was not always sure whether he was playing against two or three players.

Graham King had trained tennis a lot in the last three months and was able to win the starting match against Vadims Culka. Christian was able to win his first O40 tournament, but should not get too cocky about it as he was the youngest competitor in the field. Michael secured the second place in the men's B in a round robin tournament. Too bad he had his strongest opponent right in the first match. Who knows what else would have been possible?

In Men Elite, Oliver Bühler managed to get another podium place. Unfortunately, he lost his third final on the tour against a very strong Leon Griffiths but was able to bite off the current Swiss champion in the semifinals thanks to a 20:17 catch-up in table tennis and very solid badminton.

Christian lost the match for 3rd place against Luke Griffiths. The latter almost took himself out of the match at the score of 1:6 when he unsuccessfully run for a ball. After he slipped, he hit his head into the tin and then lay down for a few minutes. However, he was able to recover and win the game for himself.

Michael was allowed to choose a restaurant in Riga on Sunday evening. Unfortunately the choice was so bad that Oliver could not digest his pizza even after 5 days. In the sense, get well soon and next time better again pizza "without nothing"!

CS