Next season’s World Tour calendar has been finalized. A lot of work have been put in to get the last few tournaments on the list, but we are happy to now announce a total of 14 World Tour tournaments plus another 2 challengers. There can easily be more challengers coming in 2018 as the deadline for applying for one of these is just 4 months prior to the tournament.
The Tour will as usual start in Vienna in the first weekend of the year. The City and Country Club in Vienna, which hosted the European Championships this year, will host the Vienna Classics. In February Swedish Open returns to Malmö including the first leg of the 2018 Champions League. This is followed only one week later by the Club La Santa Open in Lanzarote, Spain, hosted by Racketlon Denmark. April includes the traditional Czech Open and the first challenger (confirmed) challenger of the year, the Massachusetts Racket Masters in USA.
Two tournaments in Nussloch, Germany
In May the World Doubles Championships will be hosted at the popular venue of Racket Center in Nussloch. This will be hosted along with IWT Nussloch Open and will be a 4-day tournament. Thursday and Friday will be the World Doubles Championship and Saturday and Sunday will the IWT, which will only be a singles tournament. Nussloch will also host the traditional German Open like the many past years. Like last year the second leg of the Champions League will be hosted on the Friday of this weekend. Note that FIR and Racket Center Nussloch have decided to move it into start August instead of on the normal date at the end of July.
In between the two tournaments in Nussloch there are three stops on the tour, which will take us to Belgium, France and Latvia. Oudenaarde in Belgium is as always the host of the most popular tournament on the tour, the King of Rackets. In Paris the second (confirmed) challenger of the year, which will take place and Latvia returns for the third straight year with an IWT in Riga.
World Champs in Switzerland
The Team and Singles World Championships will take place in Vitis in Zürich, Switzerland. This venue last hosted the World Champs back in 2013 and is to date still the biggest racketlon tournament ever hosted. The Finnish Open in Helsinki will follow before the tour again goes to Malta for some sun in October. The tour will end in Austria with the World Tour Finals in Wiener Neudorf close to Vienna. Beneath a full overview of the 2018 FIR World Tour. See also fir.tournamentsoftware.com, where all the tournaments have been published.
Date | Type | Tournament Name | Country | Tournament Director | Delegate |
5-7.1 | IWT | Vienna Classics | Austria | Fabian Hofmann | Radu Ionescu |
23-25.2 | IWT + CL | Swedish Open | Sweden | Markus Borg | Kresten Hougaard |
3-5.3 | IWT | Club La Santa Open | Lanzarote, Spain | Kresten Hougaard | Luke Barnes |
20-22.4 | IWT | Czech Open | Czech Republic | Svatopluk Rejthar | Kirsten Kaptein |
28-29.4 | CHA | Massachusetts Racket Masters | USA | Andy Stenson | TBC |
10-11.5 | WC dbl | WC Doubles | Germany | Matthias Zimmermann | Hans Van Daele |
12-13.5 | IWT | Nussloch Open | Germany | Matthias Zimmermann | Hans Van Daele |
1-3.6 | SWT | King of Rackets | Belgium | Hilde van Onderbergen | Morten Jaksland |
29.6-1.7 | CHA | French Open | France | Josselin Gadé | Johnny Bispham |
13-15.7 | IWT | Latvian Open | Latvia | Zigmars Puikevics | Johnny Bispham |
3-5.8 | IWT + CL | German Open | Germany | Matthias Zimmermann | Kresten Hougaard |
22-26.8 | WC | WC Singles | Switzerland | Esther Dübendorfer | J. Bishop / R. Middleton |
22-26.8 | WC | WC Teams | Switzerland | Esther Dübendorfer | J. Bishop / R. Middleton |
14-16.9 | IWT | Finnish Open | Finland | Poku Salo | TBD |
12-14.10 | IWT | Malta Open | Malta | Duncan Stahl | Kirsten Kaptein |
23-25.11 | SWT | World Tour Finals Austrian Open | Austria | Fabian Hofmann | Richard Middleton |
Kresten Hougaard
FIR President