The Best Racketlon Tournament Ever Played!
Date: 2001-10-29
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The draw for Gothenburg Racketlon World Open 2002 was published last Friday and it takes no more than a quick look at it to see that the goal of the World Open management team will be fulfilled; This has got to be the best racketlon tournament ever played!

The overall picture is that World Open has attracted over 100 players from eight different countries. Compared to last year the countries involved in has grown with participants from England, Norway and Estonia. Finland, Scotland, Germany, Sweden and France had players taking part last year already. Let's have a closer look at present status:

 

1) National Team Event

On Friday evening, for the first time in Racketlon history national teams will face each other.The following teams have confirmed their participation:

Finland
Sweden
England
Scotland

The members of each team will be handed in by the team captains 15 minutes before match start, at the latest, and are not yet known. However, the educated guess of Racketlon.com is that they will look something like this:

Finland

L: Susanna Näykki-Lautala
M1: Mikko Kärkkäinen
M2: Toni Kemppinen
M3: Harri Peltola

Sweden

L: Lilian Druve
M1: Magnus Eliasson
M2: Roland Helle
M3: Mats Källberg

Scotland

L: Judy Murray/Katy Buchanan
M1: Steve Thomson
M2: Phil Reid
M3: Jonathan Russel/Richard Miller

England

L: Rebecca Macree
M1: David Lazarus
M2: Gary Zuconni
M3: Stuart Foster

Look out for an extremely prestigeous "Finn Fight" (Swe: Finnkamp) between the world's two dominant Racketlon powers at present, Sweden and Finland, on Friday evening, 20:30. And for an equally interesting match for third prize between England and Scotland.

 

2) The Men's Elite Class looks strong...

In the end, the size of the Elite class has landed on 27 people. Among them are 8 out of 10 from the World Top 10 list:

1. (1) Mikko Kärkkäinen (FIN)
2. (2) Magnus Eliasson (SWE)
3. (3) Roland Helle (SWE)
4. (4) Toni Kemppinen (FIN)
5. (5) Ari-Matti Koskinen (FIN)
6. (6) Mats Källberg (SWE)
7. (-) Stefan Adamsson (SWE)
8. (8) Harri Suutarinen (FIN)
9. (7) Stefan Larsson (SWE)
10. (-) Nicolas Sene (FRA)

 

... and from the Swedish perspective 9 out of 10 from the Swedish Top 10 list will take part:

1 Magnus Eliasson 3809,68 (ranking points)
2 Mats Källberg 1366,01
3 Roland Helle 1053,09
4 Stefan Adamsson 935,20
5 Stefan Larsson 840,78
6 Joakim Sandberg 613,76
7 Daniel Brodén 460,88
8 Mika Hasmats 436,20
9 Håkan Granberg 336,46
10 Rickard Persson 319,16

 

Another point of interest is that there will be clearly identified racketlon national number ones from four different countries. All of World Top 10 standard and all, arguably, with a potential to win the tournament:

David Lazarus, English #1
Magnus Eliasson, Swedish #1
Mikko Kärkkäinen, Finnish #1
Nicolas Sene, French #1

 

A participant that will attract special media interest is former top international tennis player Magnus "Gusten" Gustafsson. If he wins his first match against English team captain and former international table tennis player Michael Auchterlonie he will face the current World #1 Mikko Kärkkäinen. Swedish national television (TV4) have confirmed that they intend to cover Gusten's challenge of the best racket player in the world at 1 o'clock on Saturday afternoon. Auchterlonie might have other plans though...

 

3) An Open Ladies Class

The ladies class features eight players from five different countries. Five out of ten players have positions on the present World Top 10 list:

1. Katja Aminoff (FIN)
2. Lilian Druve (SWE)
3. Susanna Näykki-Lautala (FIN)
4. Marina Finth (SWE)
5. Katy Buchanan (SCOT)
6. Hanna Miestamo (FIN)
7. Anneli Druve (SWE),
Helena Nirs (SWE) , Chris Randerson (SCOT)
10. Susanna Karlsson (SWE)

But the uncertainties are so extreme that the winner might be someone else! There are three high quality entries new to racketlon:

Irene Seifert (GER)
Judy Murray (SCOT)
Rebecca Macree (ENG)

Seifert has a background in the German multi-racket Mehr-Schläger-Turnier tradition and Murray has solid racket experience from a top level (her long list of merits includes that she is a former Scottish Tennis champion with a tennis world ranking and a former junior badminton internationalist. She has also played league squash and is presently Scotland's tennis national coach.) As for Macree, see separate news item.

 

 

BEAT THAT!

 

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