A Scotsman among the World Top Ten!
Date: 2004-09-05
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A new World Ranking - updated with the results from German Open - has now been published on Racketlon.com. The German Open meant an influx to it of no less than 77 new players and it now contains 943 names. With tournaments like English Open, Gothenburg Open and, above all, the Vienna World Championships coming up it seems a safe bet that the sensational 1000 mark will have been passed by the end of the year. Not bad for a sport that had its first international tournament played less than three years ago!

Rookie Calum Reid, together with Eliasson
when they faced each other in the final of the Bulgarian Open in July

From the Men's ranking it can be noted that Scotland have now got their first Top Ten player. He is 19(!) years old and his name is Calum Reid. He swapped places with Marcel Weigl (who became the first Austrian among the prestigious Top Ten after Scottish Open last month). The tight situation between these two players also manifested itself on court when they faced each other in a gruelling gummi-arm encounter in Scottish Open recently (won by Weigl). Reid is obviously a hot candidate for the Junior World Championship title in Vienna in November.

On the Ladies' side Sweden's Lilian Druve has returned to the number 1 position after a brief summer visit in the, for her, unfamiliar region one step down. After beating previous number 1 Katy Buchanan in the German Open "clash-of-queens" final; Druve–Buchanan +3 (tt:10-11,10-11 ba:11-5,11-2 sq:5-11,0-11 te:11-10,11-5).

Given the fact that fairly few veterans so-far travel on the World Tour one single good result can lead to a very high position on their World Ranking very quickly - a fact well exploited by the winner of the German Open Veteran Class, Frank Schnägelberger. Although this was his very first racketlon tournament his victory brought him straight up to second place after Sweden's Pär Carleke.

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