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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.
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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 |
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British Racketlon Open
12/13 April 2003Final:
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
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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.
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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
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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. |
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