The first racketlon tournament in South East Asia was the last one of the year 2017: The Thailand Open in Pattaya was proceeded by the German Racketlon Federation, since Thailand has (not yet) an own Federation. Tournament director Frank Kleiber was a bit dissapointed over the number of entries (26) although the tournament was online since November 2016. The duration was cut from 3 to 2 days, and the number of courts was reduced from 4 to 2, and at the end of the day it was a successful tournament leaving all participants happy with the conditions.
An airport pickup was organised for all players coming to Suvarmabhumi Airport, the tournament hotel (Ambassador City Jomtien) granted very special room rates although it is high season, and finally we had a nice players party with free beer and Karaoke.
The interesting thing was that this time the participating countries had a different profile than with usual tournaments held in Europe or Canada. There was a group of good Hongkong players, the very first Thai participant ever, an Australian who lives in Thailand, a Mexican that lives in Germany, and finally the winner in Men A and in Seniors 40 was from India: Ashutosh Pednekar (credit:TD) won both categories, marching his way unstoppable to the top of the Senior world ranking, if he continues to play tournaments. All results are online on fir.tournamentsoftware.com
Discussions are ongoing, whether the Thai player Nattawee would also co-host a possible tournament in next winter. If talks are successful, we will have the second Thailand Open in next coming December again.
Here in Asia we also will have talks with the Hongkong Racketlon federation for a possibility of a tournament there, and maybe an Asia tournament series (2 or 3 tournaments in December), and we are looking very much forward to the first tournament in India during this year.
Frank Kleiber
Tournament Director
