The juniors have an early start on the first day of the 2023 FIR Racketlon World Championships, as they kick off the event at 8:30 am here in Rotterdam. Let’s have a look at who’s playing when and where. All Centre Court matches are live-streamed and can be followed via this link. The live stream is provided by Streamster again after a successful partnership last year. The team matches will start in the morning and the singles in the afternoon.
Junior teams u21, u18, u13 and u11
The first match on centre court is between Great Britain 1 against Great Britain 2. Great Britain will try to defend their title after being successful in Austria last year. Great Britain 1 consists of Watkin-Rees, Wilson and Pye. Great Britain 3 of Leighton, Marcus and Ogram. An exciting start for UK Racketlon. The other match is between France and Great Britain 2. France has Beaufrère, Hamon and Delpont. GB 2 has Gupta, Shergill and Ranson. Austria (Harca, Hörtinger, Radl, Sam, Nothegger and Steiner) and Germany (
Böhm, Ried, Reissenauer and Zahn) will play their first matches later today.
Junior Teams u18
The first edition of the u18 teams was won last year by Germany, who’s not competing in this category this year so a new champion will be guaranteed. The first match is between Austria U18 1 (Hörtinger, Prager, Radl, Sam, Zimmermann, Nothegger) and Austria U18 2 (Perschinka, Rozic, Steiner, Steiner-Poschl and Grüner). The other match is between India U18 and Czech U18. India’s team consists of the K A siblings, and Czech’s team has Dvořák, Volf, Voplakal and Sezemska.
Junior teams u16
The U16 teams are split in two groups, and just as in the u18, Austria are the favourites. Group A consisted of Austria U16 1 (Perschinka, Prager and Sam), Czech (Kniezek and Voplakal), Great Britain 2 (Austin and Fontanelli) and France 2 (Julio and Vico). Group B consists of France 1 (Batiot and Worobel), Great Britain 1 (Burgess and Hickling) and Austria 2 (Rozic, Sam and Zimmermann). Czech Republi won the u16 title last year and will do their best to take this year’s title as well. Great Britain won the six editions before Czech and are looking for their seventh u16 world team title.
Junior teams u13
The u13 teams are in a group of four, with a new guaranteed champion this year as Great Britain doesn’t have a team. It’s an all-Austrian battle again as Austria 1 (Sam and Sam) and Austria 2 (Borchert, Borchert and Widu) will play their first match against each other. The other matchup is between France (Augereau and Bouchard) and Germany (Altmann and Zahn).
Junior teams u11
This will be the first u11 category after trialing u10 and u12 successfully in Austria last year. The first matches will be between France 1 (Augereau and Barrier) and France 2 (Duguet and Duguet) and between Germany (Sach, Altmann, Eliseeva, Luul) and Great Britain (Flatman, Flatman and Penna).
Junior individual world championships
Next to the teams, the individual categories will also be starting on Wednesday. The first ones up will be the under 16’s at 11:45AM.
U11 and U13 – Luul and Zahn are Looking for consecutive titles
The u11 is headed by Yorsalem Luul who won the u10 category last year. She has a bye in the first round and will play either Chan or Flatman. Robin Sach is the fourth seed and plays Augereau in their first match. the other first round match on the top half of the draw will be between Louise Duguet and Deniz Korer. Elizaveta is the second seed and also receives a bye, to potentially play Henry Flatman or Pierre Barrier. Nina Altmann is the third seed and also has a bye, she will play either Edouard Duguet or Noah Penna. The Juniors U13 is headed by Romeo and Robin Sam. The Austrian brothers won the doubles last weekend. Romeo Sam has a bye to play Augereau or Borchert. Fourth seed Borchert also has a bye and will play Bouchard in the quarter-finals. On the bottom half of the draw, Robin Sam has a bye to play Henry Flatman or Sumisławski. Korer and Barrier are the other first-round match at the bottom half of the draw, and the winner will play third seed Widu. The top seed for the girls u13 is defending champion Ylvie Zahn. In a group of five they will fight who will become the new world champion. Her contenders are Luul, Eliseeva, Nina Altmann and Lara Altmann.
Juniors u11 | Juniors u13 | Girls u13
Juniors u16 – Kotala and Kozłowska are top seeds
Ewa Kozłowska is the top seed for the girls u16 and has a tough draw against last year’s champion Aadirai K A. The winner will play Sezemska or Dutch player Mols in the semi-finals. Vuorinen is the second seed for this event, she plays Nothegger in the first round. The other quarter-final is between u13 champion Zahn and Grüner from Austria. Andreas Kotala from Switzerland is the no 1 in the juniors u16 category. He has a bye to play either Rozic or Fischer. Vuorinen and Worobel both have byes to meet in the quarter finals, as well as Voplakal and Zimmermann. Third seed Prager will play UK’s Ronnie Hickling in his first match. On the bottom half of the draw, Burgess plays Perschinka, Fontanelli plays Batiot . Eight seed Kniezek plays Dimitri Julio from France and second seed Daniel Austin plays either Naumescu or Vico in his first round.
Juniors u18 – Steyer looking for a second title Ranson top seed in girls category
In another 16 player draw, junior world no 6 and top seed for this event, Lucas Steyer, receives a bye in his first round. He will play either Dvořák or Steiner-Pöschl. The other round one matches on the top half of the draw are between Krog and Hörtinger, and Dvorský and Steiner . Fourth seed Volf will play GB’s Vincent. Whilst Vernier plays Radl and former champion Kiljunen plays K A. Second seed Leon Sam also receives a bye in the first round. The girls are split in two groups, with Group A headed by top seed and girls no 2 Holly Ranson. Ranson will play her first match against Delpont from France. Last year’s u16 champion K A plays Grüner in the other poule A line-up. Poule B is led by Pye who has to battle past Nothegger and Kozłowska to make the final. Pye is also the defending champion and will be looking for her second consecutive title this week.
Juniors u21 – Griffiths aiming for eight world junior title, Lau looking to defend her title
Ogram is the top seed in a strong girls u21 draw. She plays her first group match against Steiner and also has to battle past Pye to make it to the final. The other group is headed by second seed Ranson. Ranson’s first match will be against Postdijk on Wednesday, and also has to face last year’s champion Lau on Friday. The juniors u21 draw is headed by Luke Griffiths who is looking to add yet another gold medal to his collection. He has a bye in the first round to play either Ried or Shergill. Fourth seed Böhm will play Wilson in their first match, and third seed Davidson faces fellow countryman Watkin-Rees. Second seed Harca also receives a bye and plays either Gupta or Hamon.
Make sure to follow all the action on our social media pages, and make sure to tune in to the live stream and catch some of Racketlon’s future stars.
Sanne Veldkamp /Media Officer
