Racketlon Doubles?
2003-12-30
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Stuart Foster is the English representative in the IRF and the man behind both English and British Open on the 2004 Racketlon World Tour. Read his short report from a Racketlon Doubles experiment below.

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The Eastbourne Doubles Racketlon Challenge 27 December 2003

Four UK Racketloners took up the doubles challenge to see if it was practical.
There was Simon Tanner (WR 132) paired his normal Sussex tennis partner Jeremy Bennett (WR 86) against the pair for Chesham Bois Adam Henry (WR 131) and Stuart Foster (WR 55).

There were a few small changes to the singles and the normal doubles rules, racketball replaced squash as that was deemed too dangerous for amateurs doubles. In Badminton, the pairs should stick to one side when receiving like tennis.

Adam and Stuart proved that a tennis pair could play well together in all four sports by dispatching the Sussex pair as follows:

Table Tennis 21-17, Racketball 21-10, Badminton 21-11 and lastly the Tennis 21-11 (+35)

After the event a complete review was had (in of course a curry house!), it was suggested that squash would go back in with the following conditions:
It would be play as a singles in two parts up to 21 as normal. The player with the highest World Ranking in the pair will play No1 against the other pairs No1 up to first to 11 then the No2 players take over to finish up to 21 etc.

Maybe this could be introduced as a friendly warm up event prior to a tour event or be introduced as part of the world team event?

Comments welcome

Cheers

StuFoz

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