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Racketlon
Table Tennis ... Squash ...
Badminton ... Tennis ...

Four games to 21, total points count

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World Open 2003  |  British Open 2003

11-Dec-03
IRF launch 2004
Racketlon World Tour


The International Racketlon Federation today makes official the Calendar for the 2004 IRF Racketlon World Tour. A cousin of Triathlon and Decathlon, Racketlon is the sport where players challenge each other in all four of the World's major racket sports table tennis, squash, badminton and tennis. Four games to 21. The total number of points are summed up to decide the winner.

During 2003 the first IRF Racketlon World Tour took place, covering 7 tournaments in 5 different countries. In 2004 the Tour expands to 12 tournaments in 10 countries whereby, for example, the two known multi racket strongholds Germany and Belgium are added to the list.

And, for the first time, Racketlon will cross the Atlantic through the arrival of Canadian Open in March. As in 2003 the tour will peak at the end of the year with the World Championships, this time in Vienna, Austria.

The tour constitutes yet another in a series of increasingly ambitious efforts to find an answer to the question "Who is the Best Racketplayer in the World?"

The question which splits the racketlon community in two camps is whether there is still anyone unknown out there that could challenge the World Champion Magnus Eliasson (Sweden) for this title.

Sometimes described as "The Ivan Lendl of Racketlon", he dominated the 2003 tour almost completely and concluded a long series of nothing but victories in November by winning the World Championships for a second consecutive time. The tour is bound to find out if his superior at all exists. The group of people who believe it is getting smaller by every new Eliasson victory.

However: Canadian former world squash champion Jonathon Power is apparently also a good tennis player. Swedish former tennis World #1 Stefan Edberg has taken up squash and plays it at fairly high national level. There are also indications that former table tennis World #1 Jan-Ove Waldner (also from Sweden) might be interested to try Racketlon when his incredibly successful table tennis career comes to an end. He is said to play a strong game of Tennis and everyone who has seen him play tends to believe that he could do almost anything with any ball. These are only three of Eliasson's potential challengers.

If the reader of this press release is an excellent all-round racket player the IRF Racketlon World Tour constitutes an opportunity to find out if he even, in fact, is a top international racketlon player. But the tour events are not targeted on Elite players only.

Most events will contain at least one separate class for amateurs and everyone who participates in any of the tour events will get a position on the IRF Racketlon World Ranking.
 

Racketlon 2004
World Tour

Swedish Open,
Stockholm, 9-11 January

Canadian Open,
Toronto, 12-14 March

British Open,
London, 3-4 April

Finnish Open,
Lahti, 14-16 May

Belgian Open,
Oudunaarde, 5-6 June

Bulgarian Open,
Sofia, 16-18 July

Scottish Open,
Monifieth, 7-8 August

German Open,
Weiterstadt, 27-29 August

Welsh Open,
Cardiff, 17-19 September

English Open,
London, 9-10 October

Gothenburg Open,
Gothenburg, 29-31 October

World Championships,
Vienna, 11-14 November

16-Nov-03
Sweden's Racketlon Revenge
in Gothenburg World Champs
Hans Mullamaa reports   
 

From a field of 109 players from 11 countries, hosts Sweden emerged with a clean sweep of Racketlon World Titles, erasing the memory of Finnish success two years ago.

Men's Event:
Magnus Eliasson
has almost totally dominated the Racketlon Tour this year and has been the No.1 on the World Ranking ever since he won last year's World Championship. The 35-year-old former ice hockey professional Eliasson has taken the uncompromising attitude of a professional athlete into the relatively immature game of Racketlon and since taking up the sport in 1999 has quickly moved to the top of the game..

Hopes of a dream final between Eliasson world No.2 Mikko Kärkkäinen, the man who has beaten Eliasson 4 times and never lost, evaporated when Kärkkäinen was knocked out in the quarter finals by another Swede, Stefan Adamsson. Although unexpected this was not a big surprise since Adamsson has made great progress over the last year. In the Swedish championships held in May he actually beat Eliasson himself in the final.

But this time, in the World Championship final, Eliasson proved too strong and moved on to a very safe victory by +17! points (21-17, 21-8, 17-21, 9-5!) after winning the table tennis for the first time against Adamsson.
 

Women's Event:
In the Ladies' class, that looked very interesting and open from start with challengers like the energetic and hard training Hanna Miestamo as well as German multi-racket dominant Silke Altmann or former Swedish Champion Susanna Karlsson, the defending World Champion Lilian Druve came out on top again, although competition is certainly increasing in this class.

Germany's Altmann did prove a very strong newcomer and beat both Sweden's World No.7 Anneli Druve (the twin sister of Lilian) and Scotland's World No.3 Katy Buchanan before she lost the semi final by 9 points to Lilian Druve in a very tight game that was absolutely even before the tennis; 13-21, 15-21, 21-7, 21-12 (Druve's scores first). A reliable tennis performance throughout the tournament saved Druve from a sensational loss to a German newcomer.
 

Veteran's Event:
Sweden took on the rest of the World to claim the Veteran World Championship too: Former long-standing Veteran Swedish Champion Olle Benéus beat the best Englishman, Graham Norton, in the quarter final. Staffan Myrdal took care of the best Scot, also in the quarter final, before knocking out Peltola himself in the semi-final albeit with the tight margin of 2 points (17-21, 21-14, 17-21, 21-18) in a match that was close in basically all sports.

And Pär Carleke had no trouble whatsoever in meeting the high expectations and marched his way to the final by a very firm series of figures: +70!, +37!, +31! and finally +21! All his matches were decided before tennis. And the most he gave away in squash was 5 points. "I entered to get the title while it is still easy.", Carleke said after the match, "In the future it will not be so easy to become a Racketlon World Champion".
 

Team Event:
The team event finally, offered very few surprises. Sweden marched off to an expected easy victory given that some of Finland's best players (most notably Toni Kemppinen and Ari-Matti Koskinen) did not attend. Unfortunately, that dream team match between a Swedish and a Finnish team manned with the best possible players have not yet been realized.

Given that Finland has some of the top racketlon players in the world in Toni Kemppinen (World Open runner-up and Finnish Champion in 2001), Mikko kärkkäinen and Hanna Miestamo it could be a real thriller. Kärkkäinen's team encounter with Magnus Eliasson indicated, yet again, that Finland would not be easily beaten. He beat Eliasson for the fourth consecutive time by the clear margin of +9 points (11-4, 4-11, 11-7, 11-6) and has simply not lost yet to the World No.1(!)


Team England in Gothenberg
Stuart Foster, Tracy Dove, John O'Donnell, David Lazarus, Douglas Struthers

Full World Championship report,
results & photos from Racketlon.com

Results:

Men's Elite
Quarter Finals:
Magnus Eliasson (SWE) bt Stefan Larsson (SWE) +24! (21-12, 21-10, 21-7!)
Roland Helle (SWE) bt Rickard Persson (SWE) +3! (9-21, 21-16, 21-5, 9-19!)
Mats Källberg (SWE) bt John O'Donnell (ENG) +3 (21-5, 1-21, 20-22, 21-12)
Stefan Admasson (SWE) bt Mikko Kärkkäinen (FIN) +11 (17-21, 21-7, 21-13, 14-21)

Semi-Finals:
Magnus Eliasson (SWE) bt Roland Helle (SWE) +5! (21-17, 21-14, 13-21, 19-17!)
Stefan Adamsson (SWE) bt Mats Källberg (SWE) +8 (6-21, 21-8, 21-17, 21-15)

Final:
Magnus Eliasson (SWE) bt Stefan Adamsson (SWE) +17! (21-17, 21-8, 17-21, 9-5!)

Ladies' Elite
Quarter Finals:
Lilian Druve (SWE) bt Katja Turtiainen (FIN) +32 (21-3, 21-16, 21-3, 12-21)
Silke Altmann (GER) bt Katie Buchanan (SCOT) +22! (21-5, 11-21, 21-9, 7-3!)
Suasanna Lautala-Näykki (FIN) bt Sunniva Aminoff (SWE) +15 (20-21, 18-21, 21-6, 21-17)
Hanna Miestamo (FIN) bt Irene Seifert (GER) (16-21, 21-2, 21-4, 21-13)

Semi-Finals:
Lilian Druve (SWE) bt Silke Altmann +9 (13-21, 15-21, 21-7, 21-12)
Hanna Miestamo (FIN) bt Suasanna Lautala-Näykki (FIN) +9 (21-14, 21-11, 16-21, 10-13!)

Final:
Lilian Druve (SWE) bt Hanna Miestamo (FIN) (21-13, 15-21, 21-6, 5-0!)

Veterans (45+)
Quarter Finals:
Harri Peltola (FIN) bt Anders Waas (SWE) +27! (21-5, 18-21, 21-7!)
Staffan Myrdal (SWE) bt Kevin Lawlor (SCOT) +25 (21-2, 8-21, 21-11, 21-12)
Olle Benéus (SWE) bt Graham Norton (ENG) +5 (21-6, 15-21, 19-21, 19-21)
Pär Carleke (SWE) bt Gunnar Ljung (SWE) +37! (21-16, 21-5, 21-5!)

Semi-Finals:
Staffan Myrdal (SWE) bt Harri Peltola (FIN) +2 (17-21, 21-14, 17-21, 21-18)
Pär Carleke (SWE) bt Olle Benéus (SWE) interrupted! (21-8, 21-3, 6-6!)

Final:
Pär Carleke (SWE) bt Staffan Myrdal (SWE) +21! (21-23, 21-2, 21-12, 6-11!)

 

Full World Championship report,
results & photos from Racketlon.com

   
British Racketlon Open
12/13 April 2003

Final:
Rickard Persson (SWE) bt John O'Donnell (ENG)  +9
  
21-6, 7-21, 18-21, 21-10

The English Strike Back
Hans Mullamaa, President of the International Racketlon Federation, reports ...

As the first British Racketlon Open was held in London last weekend, for the first time in the history of racketlon there was a non-Scandinavian finalist in an international tournament.

John O'Donnell, a 35-year-old english former squash professional took on the visiting force of eleven players of the Scandinavian racketlon establishment (ten Swedes and one Finn, comprising the second wave of a viking invasion that was initiated at the English Open last October) and made it all the way to the final where experienced Swedish racketlete Rickard Persson was waiting. Persson won the title by a margin of 9 points.

The British Open result meant for O'Donnell a leap from 28 to 14 on the Racketlon World ranking which means that he moved ahead of Scotland's Steve Thomson to the position as the best ranked racketlon player in the UK. If one considers that he played his first racketlon tournament only a few months ago (Swedish Open in Stockholm in January) it seems likely that O'Donnell could become a serious contender for the World Championship title this year already. All the more so if one takes into account two remarkable developments on O'Donnell's path to the final; First, in the second round against French World #11 Nicolas Sene; Not many would have placed their bets on O'Donnell after the first three sets. He was admittedly in the lead by 9 points after having won both table tennis and squash convincingly (former badminton French national team player Sene was expectedly out of reach in badminton) but given that tennis is his weakest link while Sene is a good quality player it did not look good. As expected Sene took a firm grip of the tennis set and advanced rapidly to a 15-6 lead.

But then O'Donnell suddenly started to win points. The audience would not believe their eyes as long "soft" rallies that sometimes contained up to 40 hits over the net, most of them sliced with safe squash technique (particularly on behalf of O'Donnell) slowly gave him the advantage.

Second, in the semifinal against Marcel Weigl (Austria); Although most people expected O'Donnell to win the initial table tennis set fairly easily Weigl got on to a good start taking the lead by 9-15. Then, in a recovery of an extent possibly never before seen in the history of racketlon O'Donnell took 12(!) straight points thereby winning the set with 21-15. That paved the ground for an O'Donnell victory by +24 points (21-15, 21-5, 21-18!) a margin that would probably have been much smaller if tennis specialist Weigl had only got the opportunity to play the last set.

So, it seems obvious that O'Donnell already is in possession of some of the psychological/tactical qualities widely known to play such an important role in the game of racketlon; The ability to play well against someone who is much superior/inferior than yourself and the ability to focus on the fact that every point counts from start. A girlfriend at ringside committed to taking up statistics on winning/loosing shots adds further clarity to the picture. There is no doubt about the purpose in mind of this Englishman.

Tournament of Surprises
O'Donnell was not the only player that did better than expected in this event. British Open could quite adequately, in fact, be labeled a "tournament of surprises". In the Men's Open class only one of the top 4 seeds made it to the semifinal(!) which was also the case in the Men's Amateur class. The #1 seed, Sweden's charismatic World #1 Magnus Eliasson lost in the semifinal to Rickard Persson after having had to stop the match when he suffered an unfortunate foot injury at a point when the match still looked remarkably undecided (9-21, 21-7, 11-10 injury!; Eliasson's score first). The #3 seed Nicolas Sene (France) and #6 seed Joakim Sandberg (Sweden) both lost to O'Donnell. The #4 seed Stefan Larsson (Sweden) lost to the winner Rickard Persson and the #2 seed Ola Carleke (Sweden) lost to Marcel Weigl, which was probably the biggest surprise of them all. Weigl, who was the only Austrian in British Open, had only taken part in one international event before this - Swedish Open in January - where he lost in the first round of the Class 1 event. Therefore, it must have come as something of a shock to Ola Carleke, world ranked #8 and a World Championship semifinalist in Gothenburg last year, to live through a match where he lost everything but squash - in table tennis by as much as 8-21.

Finally, of course, the winner himself, Rickard Persson, was a great surprise. Persson, a journalist and former elite table tennis player from Örebro in Sweden was only seeded #5 but turned out to be the only one that could properly defend Swedish racketlon domination this time. This victory improved his world ranking from 14 to 8.

Racketlon is spreading
British Open was a great success in many respects. Facilities at the David Lloyd sport center in Watford/Bushey were excellent, tournament management was smooth and the marketing preceeding the event was quite successful as shown by the attendance rate of 55 players making it the biggest international racketlon event outside Scandinavia sofar. But in one respect the tournament really excelled; by the number of nationalities taking part. They were no less than 10! Beside England and Sweden there were players from Finland, France, Austria and Scotland. In addition, there were four nations never before seen in a racketlon match; Belgium, South Africa, Portugal and Nigeria(!) - marking, also, the advent of the first non-European racketlon players. A more international racketlon event has indeed never been played before! Not even the World Championships last November attracted more than 8 nations.

Of particular interest were the two Belgian participants, Luc Van Bogaert and Gert Peersman. They could inform about a Belgian multi-racket tradition sofar unknown to the Racketlon community. A tournament called "King of Rackets" involving the same four sports as racketlon has apparently been arranged every year since 1993 nowadays attracting no less than around 140 people. The format is quite close to racketlon in the sense that it involves straight counting where every point counts but it does not, however, contain true racketlon matches where the same two people face each other in all four sports. Instead, the event starts out with play in small groups of some 4 people where everybody plays everybody in each sport in best of three games.

(Straight counting. The first two games are played to 11. If a third game is needed it is played to 7.) All points gathered in the group play are then summed up for each player. The players that have gained the most points continue to the play-off, the others are knocked out. The play-off consists of four separate traditional knock-out tournaments, one for each of the four sports. All players that have qualified for the play-off take part in all four tournaments. When all tournaments have been played all points from them are summed up. The total winner of the event, i.e. the King of Rackets, is the player with most points.

The next King of Rackets tournament is only a few weeks away. It is due to take place on the two first weekends of next month (1, 2, 4 and 10 May). See the invitation (flamish only) on www.recrean.be/html/anderen/Kingofrackets.html ( See also an account of the history of the king of rackets tournament on www.recrean.be/html/Activiteiten/Voorbije/Kingofrackets.html )

Luc Van Bogaert, with a solid background in table tennis, won the King of Rackets tournament in both 1997 and 1999. Therefore, his second round encounter with World Champion Magnus Eliasson came close of being a match between the Swedish and Belgian number ones. Eliasson started out by loosing the table tennis game quite heavily and Belgian hopes were still high as the initial squash points were quite tight. But, in a manner not unusual for Eliasson, he had soon squeezed much of the energy out of his opponent and after squash he could move forward to a convincing victory by +25 points - a margin small enough, however, to indicate that Van Bogaert cannot be that far behind many of the other top international racketlon players. World Champion Eliasson is, after all, almost an exception.

Racketlon @ David Lloyd's
Another indication of the fact that the game of racketlon is spreading to an ever wider audience was the visit to the tournament paid by Stewart Miller, the Managing Director of David Lloyd Leasure, the UK's market leader in health and fitness clubs with over 40 sport centers - out of which 38 are potential racketlon centers - scattered all over England. Miller has very quickly understood that if racketlon gets popular in England it would have a direct impact on demand for the David Lloyd's products and action seems not far away. The intention is to introduce the game of racketlon to the English youth by staging open house testing sessions. This is really promising news to racketlon. If it gets a foothold within the David Lloyd organization it could really break through in England, given also the fact that squash is bigger there than probably anywhere else.

The Tour Continues
British Open was the second event of eight on the IRF Racketlon World Tour. The next tournament will be held in Lahti, Finland, 17-18 May. Then tournaments in Bulgaria, Scotland, Austria and England (again) will follow until the tour finally peaks with the World Championships in Gothenburg the first weekend of November. Look under EVENTS on the www.racketlon.com startpage for more information on how to apply for each of these events.

Racketlon enthusiasts that would like to stage an event on the tour during 2004 - or even the World Championships - should indicate their interest by an e-mail to the IRF (racketlon@hotmail.com) before this year's World Championships. The tour calendar will be planned during November and fixed by the first of December.

 


John O'Donnell (L) congratulates the champion, Rickard Persson (R)

 


O'Donnell is happy after the
squash leg of the final (21-7)

 


The semi-finalists

 


World Champion Magnus Eliasson
does some running repairs ...

More photos on
www.racketlon.com

   
RACKETLON WORLD OPEN 2002
Roundup from Hans Mullamaa

BEX & LAZ FALL SHORT IN GOTHENBURG
Former Ice hockey professional Magnus Eliasson from Sweden is the first official Racketlon world champion. Previous World #1 Kärkkäinen lost in the quarter final after injury problems, which was very unfortunate for the tournament. We were really looking forward to a prestigious final between Swedish #1 and Finland's #1.

Lilian Druve (a former Swedish national team badminton player) won the Ladies' event.

England lost to Scotland in the team event. Sweden beat Finland in the final.

Bex won against World #6, Hanna Miestamo - a squash expert that got destroyed with 21-3 in squash. But she did not win any other match and therefore did not make it to the semifinals - although it was only a couple of points away.

Lazarus lost in the first round to Staffan Ericsson ( #33 on the Swedish national ranking before the tournament). On the other hand he did quite well against World #1 Kärkkäinen from Finland in the team event. (He still had the chance to win the match before the end tennis game but, in the end, lost with 20 points.) Lazarus won the elite plate tournament for people that lost in the first round which is proof that he is already a very good Racketlon player. He has already registered for next year and is, according to Rebecca Macree (his girlfriend) training very hard.

The English team are talking about setting up another English Racketlon event in Redbridge.

The tournament was a great success with over 100 people attending from 8 nations. And it is still growing. We have just discovered real racketlon in Austria (until now we thought it was only Finland and Sweden that were playing according to the characteristic Racketlon rules) - and they have already registered a national team for next year.
 

MACREE AIMS FOR
WORLD OPEN

Rebecca Macree, the world number 11 squash player, is a surprise entry for the Racketlon World Open.

Currently serving a WISPA ban which kept her out of the Women's World Open in Qatar, Macree, who caused a stir by playing in a Serena Williams-style catsuit in the English National League, has reportedly been honing her skills in the other three Racketlon disciplines.

As well as competing in the individual event, Macree will be part of the English team, headed by David Lazarus.

 


London Open Finalists

 


The competitors

 


The semi-finalists

 


the Organisers

 


Action at David Lloyd

Lazarus can't stem Viking tide ... yet
Hans Mullamaa on the English Open


It was a great tournament with several interesting entries new to racketlon.

David Lazarus from England is going to be a very good racketlon player if he just gets used to the psychology of the game. So is Gary Zuconni (also England) and Nicolas Sene (France). David and Nicolas are probably going in on the World top ten list.

But it was not quite enough this time. The top 4 of Swedish Racketlon, who all participated in English Open, did not lose to any non-Swedish players.

Winner was world #2 Magnus Eliasson.
Runner-up: Roland Helle (also Sweden).

Lazarus continues his battle against the Vikings - in their own land - in the World Championships in the beginning of November. The English Open was only a test - his first racketlon tournament.

Gothenburg is the venue of the real battle ...

 
English Open
report from Hans Mullamaa

This tournament was the first ever Racketlon event to take place on English soil - and the second in the UK after Scottish Open that was organized in Monifieth in mid August. It was the brainchild of former table tennis internationalist Michael Auchterlonie, who is also the founder of the recently established English Racketlon Association and the English representative in the International Racketlon Federation. A true starter, Mike has made a lot of things happen in the few months that have elapsed since he first saw that article on Gothenburg Racketlon World Open in the English Tennis Ace Magazine and English Open meant that a new chapter in the history of the internationalization of Racketlon can be written. Probably for the first time, it brought together three different European streams of multi-racket tradition; the Scandinavian racketlon tradition stemming from Finland in the mid Eighties and the pioneering work of the Swedish Mr Racketlon Peter Landberg, the German Mehrschläger-Turnier tradition and a French tradition of Championat de Quatre Racquettes.

The French multi-racket tournaments was surprising news to most people present. Sene could inform that he had been taken part in such an event 12 years ago. The format had several similarities with Racketlon; Same four racket sports. Best of three games to 21 played in each sport. The winner was the player who won most of the individual sports. Then games were counted. The tournament was played during three consecutive years, then ceased. Now, there are plans for a Racketlon French Open in Paris.

English Open was also distinguished by the high standard of the players taking part. No less than five of the present World Top Ten were there. And given the fact that Racketlon has been going on now for over a decade in Scandinavia, this means that the event gathered some pretty good racket players even in terms of the standard in the individual sports. The quality of the best players even took the chief organizer himself by surprise as illustrated by the following words said directly after his match against World #2 Eliasson: "He stuffed me! It's an eye opener!" Keep on training, Mike. You will get there!

Most players seemed to agree that Racketlon might face a very bright future in the UK. The two most important preconditions are there; suitable sport centers and a large quantity of squash players. The David Lloyd Sport Centers, of which there are no less than 43 in England, are almost as if they were built for Racketlon. There are even particular "Rackets Managers" in each center. As soon as David Lloyd managers start to understand what racketlon could mean for court coverage and customer satisfaction these Rackets Managers might turn into Racketlon Managers, local Racketlon tournaments will be arranged and the best representatives of each David Lloyd center will gather at prestigious annual central events of high media visibility.

The other criterion is also well fulfilled; The UK probably has more active squash players than any other country in the world! (Squash is otherwise known to be Racketlon's weakest link since it is by far the smallest of the four. Without squash players or squash courts there can be no Racketlon.)

Out of all countries in Europe, the UK is probably the one where Racketlon is most likely to really take off.