The Dunlop Dutch Open Racketlon from 18 to 20 July will be held in Eindhoven, one of the magnificent Sports & Health centres of David Lloyd according to tournament director Marc Veldkamp. Not only are new venues explored annually in the Netherlands, it is also the first time that Dutch Open is a regular FIR World Tour event. In 2006 it was held as a Challenger and last year Mikko Kärkkäinen and Martina Kakosova picked up their world championship titles in Rotterdam.
It was an exicting final once more at Finnish Open (13-15 June) with a happy end for Sweden this time. World Number one Magnus Eliasson beat World Champion Mikko Kärkkäinen on his homeground and took the title for the second consecutive time in Helsinki in a thrilling match decided by one single point. Third place went to Stefan Adamsson, who defeated Pekka Kainulainen in the second Swedish-Finnish encounter.
All results here!
The Physical Education Unit of the Chinese University of Hong Kong organizes an annual Racketlon Championship since 2005. This year is the third occasion and the championship was held on 24th May 2008. There were 9 staff, 14 students and 4 kids of staff, 27 athletes in total taking part in the competitions and 24 officials serving the athletes. The Racketlon Federation of Hong Kong, China served as the advisor for PEU organizing committee.
The 17th King of Rackets in Oudenaarde (30.5-1.6) is history. Local matador Peter Duyck was only two points away from a home victory in one of the closest World Tour finals ever, but in the End Bart Beks clatched the third Super World Tour title of the season and was even successful in Men’s Doubles with Paul Twisterling as well. In the first ever Benelux Final on the FIR Racketlon World Tour, tennis professional Bart Beks took his first victory on this high level. The women’s title once again went to Martina Kakosova, who won the final against wildcard player Florence Martin-Bouet to capture her third title this year.
Jermaine Manners became only the 2nd English male player to win an international tournament after Doug Struthers. Manners defeated Andrew Hopwood, Keith Lesser & Ray Jordan in a tremendous sporting display at the FIR Challenger in Ipswich. Manners will show the European players what he is made of in the upcoming Belgium Open. With a 10-1 strike rate including a win over the highly rated James Greenhead, Manners has only lost out to Mark Jackson in his short racketlon history to date (1st round of the British Championships, by one point). Organiser Jane Cook won the British Open Women’s competition and will try to push English number one Natalie Lawrence in future, while Graham Norton was unbeatable in the Veterans (+45).
At the World Champs FIR Council Meeting in Rotterdam (December 2007) the Council agreed to add the FIR Players Regulations to a total of four set of FIR rules: FIR Statutes, FIR Rules of Racketlon, FIR World Tour Requirements and FIR Players Regulations. The FIR Statutes and the FIR Rules of Racketlon can only be changed by the Annual General Meeting (AGM) consisting of the country representatives of FIR member states, where as the FIR World Tour Requirements and the new FIR Players Regulations are produced and can be adpated by the FIR Council. All 4 set of rules have now been updated and can be downloaded on www.racketlon.net.
As the Racketlon community is aware, John Buchanan and Rickard Tauson from Procensor have put a lot of effort and work into the transformation of the old FIR World Ranking System into the new one. To finalize we need everyone’s help though. An important part of Results Reporter's player registration is to update your Old Id if you have earned ranking points between 1 January 2007 and 10 March 2008. This is pretty easy for everyone who has not done it too. Just logon to your player profile on www.resultreporter.com and open the pdf list with the old Ids (which everyone had, but was invisible) and enter it in the respective field.
