Persson, McFadyen and Whitehouse Climb the ladders
Date: 2004-08-14
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The new world ranking including the results from Scottish Open has now been published on Racketlon.com. The most interesting change is arguably that Sarah McFadyen is closing in on the ladies' side after her convincing victory over World Champion Lilian Druve in the Scottish Open final. She has moved up from 4 to 3 thereby passing the Finnish Open champion Hanna Miestamo and there are now two(!) Scottish names among the ladies' top 3. It is notable that this was the second loss only that Druve has suffered in her career. (The first loss came in Gothenburg 2001 against Finland's Katja Aminoff.)

A very interesting and prestigious situation is now building up in anticipation of the World Championships in November. Players like Buchanan, Druve, McFadyen and Miestamo all seem like potential world champions; World No.1 Buchanan beat McFadyen in Belgium in June. Miestamo beat both Buchanan in Finland in May and McFadyen in Stockholm in January. And now McFadyen, at her first try, has beaten the "unbeatable" Druve by a margin of 13 points. Intriguing.

On the Men's side Rickard Persson has moved up to number 4 after his (traditional) runnerup achievement in Scottish Open. (He has faced Eliasson in all finals since the tournament started in 2002.)

On the Men's Veteran ranking England's Richard Whitehouse has moved straight up to number 2 after his Scottish Open triumph, where he beat first seed Kevin Lawlor in the second round. In Whitehouse's beginner tour event (British Open in April) he was unlucky to get Sweden's Veteran World Champion Pär Carleke in the second round already and lost by 38 points. (Former World No.1 Harri Peltola has not played since Gothenburg in November last year and fell down to third place.)

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