Racketlon Reaches the American East
Coast
2007-08-08
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Revision History:
2007-08-08: First published
2007-08-10: Added article "Diary of a Racketlon
Rookie."
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Cliff Wenn, the President of the recently established US
Racketlon Federation (see fresh webpage on www.usaracketlon.org
), reports below from a breakthrough Racketlon tournament held in
the town of Wellesley (near Boston) on the east coast of the USA.
Further below follows an amusing article first published
on www.theswellesleyreport.com
by one of the participants of the tournament, Bob Brown, a
Welleslely resident professional reporter and editor. Bob is
(together with his wife) the co-owner of www.theswellesleyreport.com
and also the news editor of a high tech business magazine
"Network World" (see their Website).
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Our 1st Official US Racketlon tournament was a great success.
Initially, I was looking for 8 to 16 players, but in the end we
had 30 players and a main draw of 32, with a full consolation
draw. Wilson Sporting Goods was the equipment sponsor.
Also a photographer and reporter were present from the local
newspaper & even a reporter from a Boston sports radio talk
show who will be airing a special segment on Racketlon in the USA
in the next month or so.
Play was exciting with several games being decided by 1 point.
Each of these matches just missed out on the "gummi
service". One of the semi-finals was decided in tennis by 1
point, with the winning point being scored by a net shot.
Feedback from all the participants was very positive and all said
they enjoyed playing Racketlon and would come and play again.
They were all asking us when and where the next tournament was.
Results:
Main Draw:
Winner - Cliff Wenn +30 (tt:21-13 ba:21-2 sq:21-18 te:-)
Finalist - Charles Gertler (Number 14 US Junior Squash Player
U-19)
Consolation Draw:
Winner - Xun Wang +21 (tt:21-15 ba:21-15 sq:21-12 te:-)
Finalist - Mike Milevshci
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Diary of a Racketlon Rookie
by Bob Brown
I knew I was toast the second I saw his grip.
Zhiping You, my opening-round opponent in the first official
Racketlon tournament in the U.S., wielded his table tennis paddle
as if holding a pen. Yes, the dreaded penhold that Ive only
seen one place before: the Olympics.
This wasnt quite the Olympics, but perhaps is the start of
something big. This past weekends 1st Wellesley/Maugus
Racketlon Open in Wellesley attracted 30 players of widely
varying skills who competed in table tennis, badminton, squash
and tennis. Participants played the sports in that order,
progressing from smallest to largest racquets.
My first opponents specialty turned out to be table tennis.
He asked me for mine and I replied: Running and basketball.
He laughed, then gave me the worst paddling this side of a
fraternity hazing. Final score: 21-5, and my opponent took it
personally that I even got 5. I was just happy playing a game of
ping pong in which the ball wasn't hitting the ceiling and in
which I wasn't crashing into lamps like I've done in past games
in friends' basements.
We moved on to badminton, which proved to be no picnic either.
The shuttlecocks were flying higher and faster than Id ever
seen in the backyard. Seen on the sidelines were shiny carrying
bags designed to safeguard players personal badminton
racquets but that stylewise would have made Newbury Street
shoppers proud. Final score in my match, with me on the losing
end: 21-2. At this point, my opponent started apologizing for the
margin of defeat, noting that he needed to go for as big a win as
possible given the system of cumulative scoring across the four
sports.
On to squash, a sport Id never played. Had never even been
on a squash court or held a racquet. I spent the night before the
event reading up on the rules and watching YouTube videos of
classic matches. The ball bounced my way a few times and I went
down to defeat in a squeaker, 21-8. It could have been worse, as
I could have been matched up against Cliff Wenn on the squash
court.
Wenns the head squash pro at Wellesleys Maugus Club,
where the event took place. The former head college squash coach
also organized and won the tourney, topping nationally ranked
squash player Charles Gertler of Weston (shown here on the right,
Wenn on left). Wenn learned racquet sports growing up in India
and Singapore.
The squash coach has emerged as a real mover and shaker in the
nascent world of Racketlon. He is president of Racketlon USA and
has plans in the works to coordinate with the U.S. associations
for the four major racquet sports to urge their support for this
relatively new sport. Racketlon got its start in Finland and
Sweden and tournaments have been held in these and several other
countries.
Wenn said he would have been happy with even 10 or a dozen
participants and was very pleased to get close to three times
that, including a handful from out of state. The feedback
from the players has been tremendous, he said. They
would all want to play again, and in fact most of them were
asking when the next tournament is.
This past weekends Racketlon event kicked off with a short
speech by Wenn, who congratulated the participants for being
part of sports history. Then a raffle was held, with
winners grabbing a fancy badminton racquet and a new badminton
documentary. While the day got off to a relaxed start (players
were trusted to rank their own skill levels, ranging from novice
to top tournament-level player), many of the matches grew
intense.
For me, the event ended on the first of its two days. I did
manage to scrape together a win in tennis vs. my first opponent,
but got wiped out in all four events in the consolation round.
Im not sure, but I think given this was the first such
tourney in the U.S., that Im actually the 30th ranked
Racketlon player in the country. The sore and quivering right arm
I sported the next day was a small price to pay for that.
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