The Best Racketlon Tournament Ever Played!
Date: 2003-10-28
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The draw for Gothenburg Racketlon World Open 2003 has now been published 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 year as well; This has got to be the best racketlon tournament ever played! And so it has been every time this event has taken place. In 2001 it was the first international racketlon tournament ever played. In 2002 new boundaries were broken as the event was recognized by the International Racketlon Federation as the official Racketlon World Championships. This year it constitutes the peak of the first Racketlon World Tour covering seven tournaments in five different countries.

World Open has been like a three step rocket mechanism for racketlon, at each step delivering a field of participants of unprecedented quality. And, from its launchpad in Gothenburg, Racketlon is now ready to fly out internationally. Next year, according to the vision of the IRF, the World Championships will, for the first time, be held in a country different from Sweden. It's venue will be disclosed within the next month together with the rest of the venues for the 2004 Racketlon World Tour.

The overall picture is that World Open has attracted over 100 players from eleven different countries. Compared to last year the number of countries involved has grown with participants from Greece, Hungary, Australia, Belgium and Austria. Sweden, Finland, Scotland, England, Germany and Bulgaria have become well-known nationalities in the Racketlon context over the last two years.

To be precise there are 109 participants and this is the breakdown:

Sweden 48
Finland 13
Germany 11
England 9
Austria 7
Scotland 7
Belgium 6
Bulgaria 4
Greece 2
Hungary 1
Australia 1

Now, let's have a look at the details of each class:

1) National Team Event

The main occasion on Friday will be the team even containing eight national teams that will compete about the Team World Champion title. Last year's participants Sweden, Finland, Scotland and England will now encounter competition from four new national teams from Bulgaria, Belgium, Austria and Germany. For some interesting details of the individuals that make up these teams see the team presentations sent in by each team captain.

The format for the team event will be a straight knock-out tournament including a match for third prize. Each team match will contain four individual matches (three men's and one ladies' game) and in order to be able to finish the event by Friday (while not exhausting the participants before the individual events) the individual matches will be played to 11 rather than 21.

Given that Sweden's team consists of players among the World Top 10 exclusively they must be regarded as favorites. In the light of their silver medal at last year's championship Finland has been seeded number 2 and the combination Kärkkäinen/Miestamo at the top will probably prove a handful for most teams. Behind these two stars however, it looks a little weaker with two class 1 players and veteran Peltola. The audience can rest assure that teams like Germany, Scotland and Austria (all on the Finnish lower half) will be looking to use these weak spots to their advantage.

On the face of it the most uncertain of the team matches of the first round is the one between Scotland and Austria. Scotland, headed by Scottish Racketlon pioneer Phil Reid, will be looking to defend their third place from last year's championship where they beat England in a prestigeous fight for the third prize, while Austria, headed by Marcel Weigl (commonly known as the Racketlon "Bad Boy" given his hard-to-control temper) will aim to show the racketlon community that their decade long Racketlon tradition has built championship quality.

2) The Men's Elite Class Looks Strong...

In the end, the size of the Elite class has landed on 33 people. Among them are the seven best ranked players in the World. In fact, among the World top 20 only five names are missing.

1 Magnus "Lia" Eliasson Sweden 4509,66
2 Mikko Kärkkäinen Finland 2506,42
3 Mats Källberg Sweden 1915,42
4 Rickard Persson Sweden 1857,99
5 John O'Donnell England 1521,11
6 Roland Helle Sweden 1485,07
7 Stefan Adamsson Sweden 1477,77
8 Toni Kemppinen Finland 1142,41
9 Nicolas Sene France 1007,68
10 Staffan Ericsson Sweden 949,24

11 Ari-Matti Koskinen Finland 942,88
12 Stefan Larsson Sweden 938,71
13 Ola Carleke Sweden 820,27
14 Henrik Håkansson Sweden 673,32
15 Marcel Weigl Austria 659,86
16 Harri Suutarinen Finland 465,59
17 Mika Hasmats Sweden 450,53
18 Mathias Fagerström Sweden 446,73
19 Hans Mullamaa Sweden 402,92
20 Håkan Granberg Sweden 374,57

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

1 Magnus "Lia" Eliasson 3601,77
2 Stefan Adamsson 2293,84
3 Mats Källberg 1614,93
4 Roland Helle 1204,90
5 Ola Carleke 850,31
6 Joakim Sandberg 704,52
7 Staffan Ericsson 698,96
8 Rickard Persson 523,13
9 Stefan Larsson 461,45
10 Håkan Granberg 460,87

One sign of remarkable development since last year's event is that no less than 13 players in the elite class are of non-Swedish origin. Players from Belgium, Austria, Scotland and Germany have never before competed for the World Championship title. This is no longer a Scandinavian affair.

But the highlight of the Men's Elite tournament, the focus of the Racketlon World, will, of course, be the anticipated dream final between the two Racketlon giants: Magnus Eliasson of Sweden, World No.1 and undisputed King of this year's tour, and Mikko Kärkkäinen of Finland, a 22 year old racket virtuoso of unmatched talent, who has never lost to Eliasson although they have faced each other three times. A betting arrangement will be organized in the sport center for gamblers among the audience (not just for the Men's category but for the Ladies' event as well).

3) A Truly International Ladies' Class

The ladies class features fifteen players from seven different countries. All top 4 and most of the top 10 will be present:

1 Lilian Druve Sweden 2063,52
2 Hanna Miestamo Finland 1735,78
3 Katy Buchanan Scotland 1650,26
4 Susanna Lautala-Näykki Finland 1024,31
5 Katja Aminoff Finland 792,27
6 Irene Seifert Germany 582,70
7 Anneli Druve Sweden 312,27
8 Susi Minichsdorfer Austria 291,17
9 Marina Finth Sweden 275,93
10 Chris Randerson Scotland 251,73

In this event, too, the top seeds are from Finland and Sweden. Lilian Druve is the defending World Champion, who has lost only one single match in her racketlon career. Hanna Miestamo, on the other hand, is the rapidly improving challenger to the throne that has shown a remarkable form lately; First, when she won the Finnish Open in May and then when she beat the World #3 Katy Buchanan in the Austrian Open by an incredible margin of +57 points (tt:21-13, ba:21-2, te:21-4, sq:21-8). One might think that this result should be enough to make Lilian Druve tremble. But, then again, one does not know Ms Druve very well.

But the uncertainties are high and the winner might, in fact, be someone else... as seen by the following selection of high quality entries, two of them new to racketlon:

Silke Altman, Germany: in possession of a track record of nothing but victories from the German multi-racket tradition.
Sunniva Aminoff, Sweden: One of Sweden's best badminton players
Susanna Karlssson, Sweden: Never lost a racketlon match. Became Swedish Champion in the only tournament that she has carried through (took part in Gothenburg in 2001 but had to withdraw due to injury).

3) A Crowded Veteran's Class

The Men's Veteran class looks unusually interesting this year with many new names. The first impression is that this too will be a fight between Sweden (Pär Carleke) and Finland (Harri Peltola). Peltola is the defending champion, who never seems to loose a veteran match. He came out the stable winner in Gothenburg both 2001 and 2002. But this year he has got a forceful challenger in Carleke, a former Racketlon Swedish Champion, who has just turned 45. Carleke is still a threat to almost any Elite racketlon player and Peltola will really have to perform this time.

But there are other interesting names:

Kevin Lawlor - the best Scottish veteran
Graham Norton - the best English veteran
Staffan Myrdal - winner of the Swedish Championships earlier this year, where he beat Swedish veteran #1.
Robert Henning - seeded 5-8 in the latest veteran squash World Championships with a victorious background in German(!) multi racket sport.

4) Prize Money

The total pott of prize money received from our sponsors will be allocated as follows:

Men's Elite Class
Winner: 600 Euro
2nd: 200 Euro
3rd: 100 Euro

Ladies' Class
Winner: 250
2nd: 100 Euro

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