Magnus Eliasson - Outstanding
2004-01-14
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Roland Helle, who finnished number three in the Men's Elite event only beaten by Stefan Adamsson reports from Swedish Open below. See the Swedish Open homepage for full results.
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This year´s Swedish Open was an exceptionally successful event. No less than 132 racketletes participated in this prossesionally run championship organized by Lennart Eklund and his crew. All classes contained tough competitors but perhaps the ladies class was the toughest of them all, both of the semis (Hannah Miestamo) and the match for third prize (Susanna Lauttala-Näykki) was won by smallest possible margin, one point. In the final Lilian Druve once again proved hard to beat, and she has continued to improve her game after the World Championships. The ladies' class has developed a lot over the last year and contains a lot of interesting names that will be a pleasure to follow in the near future, among others Scotland's Katy Buchanan.

Photo: www.digitalfoto.nu
Lilian Druve won Swedish Open ahead of Hanna Miestamo (to the left)
and Susanna Lauttala-Näykki (to the right)
The order was identical to the one in the World Championships, from which the picture is taken.

In the men´s elite class drama was built up by the fact that most World top ten ranked players participated. Two strong English competitors, John O´Donnell and Douglas Struthers among others were going for the medals. Unfortunately they ran into each other already in the second round where O´Donnell came out winning. Peter Landberg, now a veteran winning the veteran class, entered the elite class on a wild card and managed to beat higher ranked Henrik Håkansson by one point; strong performance. In the second round however he had to give up against second seeded Stefan Adamsson, the match was decided before Tennis.

Despite all the competition there was no one that could touch the double World Champion Magnus Eliasson. Eliasson has continually improved all four disciplines over the last six months. He has spent enormous amount of time practicing to become what he is today - the best player in the world of Racketlon. He leaves nothing at random. Eliasson marched trough the tournament and didn´t even have to play tennis in any of his four victories. In the final against coming man, world number two, Stefan Adamsson Eliasson performed perhaps better than ever and won before tennis by a margin of 30 points! This proves how much he has been training.

Photo: www.digitalfoto.nu
Magnus Eliasson ahead of Stefan Adamsson and Roland Helle.
This picture, too, is from the World Championships(!)

The non Scandinavian participants in both the women's and the men´s events are getting closer and closer to medal positions. It is just a matter of time before we have a non Scandinavian player in the final of a tournament as big as Swedish Open.

In the Men´s class one three of the best Swedish squash players participated, Joakim Karlsson, Henrik Lövenborg och Carl Lövenborg. Even though they expectedly performed very well in squash none of them managed to win the class this time. Joakim Karlsson came third. This proves that the demand for allround skills is very high if you want to be a winner in Racketlon. For the first time there were players in the junior class wich was a big step towards the future of Racketlon.

In addition to all positive experiences Swedish Open could have been an even bigger success if the Nigerian team of no less than 14 players that were aiming to come to Stockholm would have been allowed visa. Lennart Eklundh put down a lot of energy into making this happen but unfortunately he did not succeed this time. This is another proof of Racketlon´s beginning success in expanding it´s boundaries outside Europe.

Finally a lot of players expressed their satisfaction with the transportation, accommodation and service delivered by the Tournament organizers. A great thank you to all that have contributed to make Swedish Open happen. Hopefully this will mean an even better event next year.

All my best

Roland Helle

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