IWT Polish Open | Tournament preview

This is the first time that the Polish Open will be an IWT tournament, after hosting a Challenger event lats year, and we can’t wait to get going. It looks like it’s going to be a great event with 69 players, with numbers going up by more than half after 32 players last year! Play will start tomorrow with the doubles, and the singles draw will start on Saturday.

Nicolas Lenggenhager from Switzerland will be the no 1 seed for this event. The Swiss player is playing his third tournament of the year, hoping to get on the podium after narrowly missing out in Finland and France. He can potentially face his doubles partner Sylvain Ternon in the semi-finals. Ternon had a great run in Paris, where he beat no 1 seed Leon Griffiths in the semi-finals, before losing to Luke Griffiths in the final. On the other side of the draw, Duncan Stahl will play his first tournament of 2023. If all goes to seeding, Stahl will face Lindberg in the semi-finals. Lindberg will be playing his second tournament of the year, after finishing in Finland. Lindberg has a tough opening round, facing world no 16 Christian Schaefer from Switzerland in what will be an exciting matchup.

The women’s draw will be headed by current world no 2 Anna-Klara Ahlmer. She will look to do one better after finishing 2nd in Finland. She will face four tough opponents in a round robin. Dutchwoman Kirsten Kaptein (world no 6) and UK’s Holly Ranson (world no 30) will be playing their first tournament of 2023, after competing in La Santa in December. The other two players in the women’s draw are world no 26 Virág Sákovics from Hungary, and world no 40 Tsz Yan Joyce Chan from Hong Kong. The first two matches will be Ranson vs Ahlmer and Sákovics vs Joyce Chan. Ranson and Ahlmer have never played before, whilst Sákovics got the better of Joyce Chan in the FIR Racketlon Team World Championships during the Hungary – Hong Kong China match. However, the scoring was till 11 so it will be interesting to see what they will do with the usual Racketlon scoring.

The men’s doubles is a draw of eight and will be headed by Kurek/Ching Ng. They will face Polish duo Rykowski/Walczak in their opening match on Friday. The no 2 seeds Lenggenhager/Ternon will play Lipowski/Ostaszyk in their opening round. The women’s doubles event is a round robin, with four pairings. Ahlmer/Kaptein seem to be the strong favourite, being ranked 1 and 3 in the world at the moment. They will play their first match against Del Favero/ Tomková from the Czech Republic. British duo Ranson and Atkinson will also try to take the title, after finishing 3rd at the Czech Open together in November. They play their opening match against Joyce Chan/ Sákovics. The mixed doubles is also a round robin with four. Ahlmer/Kurek will face Hong Kong China’s Joyce Chan/Ho Ching Ng in their opening match. British duo Stahl/Ranson will play Ahlmer/Kurek first, whilst Kaptein/Lorkiewicz will play Joyce Chan/Ho Ching Ng.

It is also great to see two junior categories have been added after last year’s event, now having the u13, and boys and girls u16.

All the draws can be found here

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