The 13th Austrian Open presented by GRAWE sidebyside with 118 players from 14 countries is history.
The Racketlon Federation Austria and I would like to apologise to all participants for all the problems around the time schedule and cutting down the tournament to two days. The lower than expected number of entries and the exciting opportunity of having national television coverage through ORF TV production on Saturday evening, all led to this decision. I appreciate this did then cause a lot of problems for players which we are genuinely sorry about and will learn from.
We tried several new things at this year’s tournament including having 2 Centre Courts with qualified referees for all sports, extra lighting on the TT centre courts, having better, healthier food options and we also considered the environment: by avoiding plastic and using glass bottles and compostable plates and cutlery, trash was reduced by 80% to previous events. Making the Austrian Open a “Green” event is something we are proud to have done.
As well as these new things, we also offered the usual player services as at other Austrian Opens: great welcome pack, free airport and hotel shuttles, massage and stringing services, participation medals for all players and our refugee volunteers helping score matches.
For the elite players we offered 2000 euros in prize money, free hospitality for the top 3 in world rankings, live scoring, live draws and doping control to ensure fair competition.
We look forward to seeing everyone at the World Championships in November and to welcoming players back to the Austrian tournaments on the 2020 World Tour.
Marcel Weigl / Austrian Open Tournament Director & RFA President
The FIR would like to apologise to all players for the problems that were caused by the late change of time schedule at the Austrian Open. Player satisfaction across all categories is vital for the healthy growth of our sport and it is something we take very seriously. We are now working hard to introduce new tournament regulations so that such problems cannot happen again. We look forward to working with all our tournament directors and national federations to keep making improvements to the World Tour, with the enjoyment of our players at the heart of everything we do.
Duncan Stahl / FIR President
