Press Release: WHO IS THE BEST RACKET PLAYER IN THE WORLD?
Gothenburg, Sweden, 2003-10-28
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At the end of this week (31 Oct - 2 Nov) the best racketplayer in the world will be appointed in Gothenburg, Sweden. That is when the Racketlon World Championships will take place. 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. Each discipline is played to 21 and the total number of points are summed up to decide the winner.

109 players from eleven different countries and four different racket sports will gather at these World Championships, that are now carried through for the third time. The last couple of years have seen an international breakthrough for the game of Racketlon that used to be an almost exclusively Scandinavian affair. A firm indication of that is that this year's World Championships constitutes the peak of the first Racketlon World Tour, covering 7 tournaments in 5 different countries.

The main attraction of the first day of the tournament is the team event that this year has attracted eight national teams (Sweden, Belgium, England, Bulgaria, Austria, Scotland, Germany and Finland). Similarily to the more famous tennis "Davis Cup", Team matches contain four individual Racketlon matches; three men's and one ladies'. The question is whether any of the other countries will be able to challenge the two dominant Racketlon powers at present, Finland and Sweden. Austria's chances are strengthened by the fact that it is the only country outside Scandinavia with a decade long racketlon tradition. Both Belgium and Germany, on the other hand, can show a history of multi racket competitions making them interesting challengers.

But like all racket sports racketlon is to its character a highly individual sport and the highlights of the World Championships will most likely be the Men's and Ladies' Elite individual tournaments. Both tournaments are expected to end up with spectacular show-downs between Finland and Sweden. In the Men's category former ice hockey(!) professional, defending World Champion and World No. 1 Magnus Eliasson (Sweden) will be looking for his first (although he has already tried three times) victory against Finnish talent Mikko Kärkkäinen. Unless English, former squash professional John O'Donnell causes a change in the agenda...

In the Ladies' category defending World Champion and World No. 1 Lilian Druve (Sweden) will be subject to a forceful challenge launched by Finnish Champion Hanna Miestamo. Unless German threat Silke Altmann, new to racketlon, but, according to all accounts a total dominant of the German multi-racket sport community, causes an upset.

Gothenburg Racketlon World Open will be played at Alelyckan's Sportcenter in Gothenburg. Management welcome media! Please, contact the Gothenburg Racketlon media officer Hans Mullamaa at Gothenburg_Racketlon@Hotmail.com (mobile: +46 70 233 8541)

Read more about Racketlon at www.racketlon.com where e.g. a comprehensive introduction to the game of Racketlon can be found (look under "RANKINGS etc")

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