Hong Kong and Great Britain are dominating the Nations Cup and Challenge Cup of the Racketlon World Championships and will face off against each other in mouthwatering finals of both categories.
In the Nations Cup, the second of the three open age team categories, Great Britain 2 first saw off the challenge of France 3 in a +22 win, with all players in the positive and Alex Du Noyer doing the most damage at number 2, +19 and without needing his tennis set. They then beat Germany 2 135-100 with wins from all and a particularly strong performance from Matilda Parslow, +17 without tennis. In their group, USA 1 also beat the French and Germans, with slightly smaller margins, to set up an exciting end-of-group match that was effectively a semi-final.
In this, two wins apiece in badminton, for Matthew Haynes and Alex Du Noyer for GB and Stephanie Chung and Noel Matthew and Alex Porush for USA, meant the Americans took a slender one-point lead into badminton, but GB overturned that with men’s singles and a doubles win in badminton, to lead by five into squash, where they really turned the screw. Matthew Haynes pulled out a superb 11-8 squash win, slightly against the odds, against Patrick Moran; Matilda Parslow enjoyed a 11-1 reverse of her table tennis score against Stephanie Chung; the doubles went GB’s way 11-6; and du Noyer lost 11-4 to excellent squash player Andrew Leung. Then there was a cracking battle of open agressive tennis between Haynes and Moran that the American took 11-7. The women’s singles was less attacking in style but no less intense, Parslow digging in against strong tennis player Chung to take a crucial nine points, saving three set points, one with an audacious baseline dropshot. James Langworthy and Jack Bishop sealed the victory 11-6 for GB with a display of excellent volleying.
In the other match in the group, France 3 beat Germany 2 +20, underlining the huge strength in depth this year of France, who have, in what must be a first for a Racketlon World Championships, submitted a whopping six teams.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong 1 dominated the other group. In fact, to such an extent that they didn’t even have to take their tennis rackets out of their bags! They triumphed +68, +52, and +46 against Austria 2, Great Britain 3, and France 2 respectively. The popular idea is that Hong Kong are very strong at the first half of racketlon, but this belies the fact that they are just very strong across the board. Across all the 12 squash rubbers in the group they won all but three.
As Hong Kong and USA’s success here shows, it’s great to see squash grow from strength to strength outside its traditional heartland of Europe, and the teams committing the time to play tournaments on the other side of the world. (Probably the biggest credit in this respect, though, needs to go to Sion Wiggin, who travels all the way from New Zealand to play some tournaments in Europe, including this one.)
Elsewhere in the group, France won twice, comfortably against Austria and +15 in a good battle with Great Britain, while Great Britain beat Austria +38.
Joel Durston
