What to watch on Day 1 – Seniors

The senior tournament will also be starting tomorrow, with the teams in the morning and singles matches in the afternoon.

Senior teams Seniors +40, +45, +55, +65

The first match for the +55 category will be Germany against Sweden. Where Germany will try their best at defending their world title from last year. For the German team we have Böhm, Börner, Kleiber, Knaack, Sach and Skock. The Swedish team consists of Bjarnehed, Edby, Hägerbrand, Jonsson and Ström. The second match on centre court and match that will kick off the senior categories on centre court is the +55 match between Hungary and The Netherlands. Hungary will try to reclaim their title after being unsuccessful to defend it last year while The Netherlands will aim to win the title on home ground. The Hungarian team consist of Frigyes, Karolyi, Matecsa, Sági and Sákovics. The Dutch team consists of Gutknecht, Rayson, de Rijter and Veldkamp. The other matches that will be on at the same time is Switzerland (Gentile, Grab, King, Ladner, Meyer and Rauber) versus France (Mercou, Montembaur, Puthoste and Stevenot) and Finland (Antikainen, Raiski, Seppälä and Tennilä) going head-to-head with Great Britain (Gupta, Lau, Marlow, Stenson and Whale).

+40 senior teams

The reigning world champion team for the +40 category, Denmark, is not competing this year so this gives Germany the opportunity to claim a second title or it will leave us with a new champion. The first match of the +40 category will be a showdown between the 2019 world champion, Germany (Branke, Elsaesser, Escher Seel and Altmann), and a new contender for the title with a possible home-ground advantage, The Netherlands (De Bruin, Meerman, Quik, Twisterling, Van De Burgt, Yadav, Henkelman and Kaptein). Later during the day, Great Britain (Browning, Jordan, Lesser, Penna, Stahl, Ball and Flatman) will play against Germany and tomorrow they will play against The Netherlands.

+45 senior teams

The first two matches for the +45 category will be France against Germany and Great Britain against Sweden. The lineup for the French is Cocriamont, Lardet, Le Toux, Vico, Worobel and Bois. The lineup for Germany is Bücker, Kaess, Kuntz, Niemeyer, Zeuner, Vielkel and Voigt. Great Britain’s team consists of Barton, Foulds, Manners, Stahl, Steeden, Westmacott, Ball and Shelley. Lastly, Sweden has Åkesson, Fagerström, Giertz, Larsson, Olofsson and Wigren. In the afternoon, since it is a round-robin of 4, the opponents will be swapped, and we get to see Great Britain versus France and Germany versus Sweden. We will have to see if the team from Great Britain can bring back the title for a third time in a row and fourth overall or if Germany or Sweden bring back a fourth win. On the other hand, France might sweep in and claim their first +45 team title.

+65 senior teams

Like the +45 category, the +65 is a round-robin of 4, where we will see four matches Wednesday and another two Thursday. We kick off the fight for the world title with Czech versus Finland on Centre Court. With Bercík and Rejthar playing for the Czech team. Then Kujala, Kumpulainen, Merta and Räisän will play for the Finish team. At the same time, Denmark (Cain, Fiori, Hesselbjerg and Schou Nielsen) will try to defend their title against the team from Great Britain (Arbuthnot and Ryan).

Senior team draws

Senior individual Championship

Later in the morning, the individual portion of the senior world championships will take off as well. We start at 11.15 with women seniors +55 number one seed Zuzana Vancuríkova who will try to claim her first world +55 title. If so, she will have to watch out for the number two seed and 2021 +55 world champion Carola Von Heimburg who will be trying to get her third +55 world title.

For the men’s +50 there is no previous champion participating so we will get to witness a new name being added to the list of world champions +50. We start the category with six round-one matches on Wednesday and continue the rest of the draw on Thursday so we will not be able to see the top seeds in action until then.

In the women’s +50 the first matches will start at 18:00. First off, we will have number one seed Zuzana Vancuríkova against Laurence Bois. Second, we will have Jo Shelly against Nicole Kamphues. Shelly will try to defend her title and get that number one spot for the fifth time in a row. Then as one of the last matches of the day, compatriot Jermain Manners will, after winning both the +40 and the +45 last year, also be gunning for a consecutive title in the +45. Because he has a bye in the first round he will start his first match in the evening against Lardet or Bhandare who have a match in Round 1. The fight for world champion +45 might come down to a showdown between Manners and a previous world champion and number one seed Marcel Weigl. Weigl will also come into action later in the day as his opponent will be the winner of the 11.30 match between Delpont or Kainulainen. Thus before either Manners or Weigl can lay claim to the title they will have to get through a few worthy opponents first.

In the women +45 we will be able to see number one seed and last year’s +55 world champion Katrin Maldre in action at 11:30 against Renate Perschinka. In a group of five we will have to see who will become the new world champion. The other contenders are Voelkel, Wigren and Ettenauer.

The +40 men will start the first round late morning/ early afternoon with the first round matches and in the evening we will get to see the number one (Christian Schaefer) and two (Mohammed Tarik Koubaa) seed, who both also play in the men’s A later this week, in action in round 2. As the senior category with the most Elite players participating this promises to be a tough category to win.

In the women +40 number one seed Kirsten Kaptein, who is also playing for the Dutch 40+ and Elite Team, kicks off her world championships against Wan Yin Lui from Hong Kong at 1:45. Although ranking-wise she is the favourite to win Kaptein has to defeat Lui, Flatman and Hlavacova first before she can claim the world title on home ground. We will also be able to see Flatman and Hlavacova in action just before noon at 11:45.

Börner is top seed in the +55, and receives a bye in the first round. He will play on centre court at 19:00 against the winner of Whale vs Jonsson. Defending champion Knaack is the fifth seed this year, and he will play the winner of Meyer and Puthoste. Kleiber is the no 1 seed in the +60 category, and he will play his first match against the winner of Marlow vs van de Kerkhof. Last year’s champion Edby is the fifth seed and will play fellow Swede Ström. Graham King is the no 1 seed in the +65, as he will try to win the title this year. He starts on Thursday against Bercík or Budinsky. Defending Champion Julian Clapp is the second seed, and will play either Kumpulainen or Rayson. The +70 seniors will play their first match on Wednesday and the rest on Thursday and Friday. No 1 seed and home favourite Steve Rayson will have to perform at his best to claim the world title. He starts his first match against Great Britain’s Arbuthnot.