In the Women’s Elite, first seed Nathalie Vogel had a tough first round draw against Tsz Yan Joyce Chan of Hong Kong. She lost the first two sports, to 18 and 10, but fought back powerfully in squash and overcame a little bit of racketlon tennis to win the set 21-9, for a plus 11 victory.
She then met Adeline Kilchenmann, who saw off the challenge of American Steph Chung, 13-21, 21-4, 21-14, 6-8. Nathalie progressed to the quarter final with a convincing 21-15, 21-8, 21-9, 1-0 victory.
Pauline Cavé and Amke Fischer beat Clarissa Steiner (plus 31) and Kirsten I. Kaptein (plus 26) to set up an enticing quarter-final – one of the women’s game up-and-comers against one of the old guard who has held the number one spot at various times in her career.
All sports were pretty tight, but unfortunately Pauline retired at 8-5 down in tennis, with Amke just two points from the points she needed.
Number three seed Stine Jacobsen had had some fitness concerns coming into the Worlds, as she had a major surgery just a few months ago. However, she looked pretty much at her typical ultra-solid best.
In fact, it was first-round opponent Fabienne Dony of Netherlands who sadly had to retire at 1-1 in tennis and be taken to hospital with a suspected torn achilles. Everyone wishes her all the best of course!
They had exchanged scores in the first two and Stine took the squash with a powerful display, leaving her needing just six from the tennis.
Matilda Parslow recovered remarkably strongly against Austrian Sandra Ettenauer after losing the table tennis to eight. She then dropped just four points in badminton and zero in squash!
But she was given a taste of her own medicine as she fell to the same scoreline in badminton against Stine. Otherwise, it was a great battle, with Stine taking the TT to 16, losing a very high quality squash match 21-13, and finishing it 8-3 in the tennis.
16-year-old Holly Ranson is coming on leaps and bounds and she won the battle of the Brits against wildcard Bethany Pye 11-21, 21-3, 21-8, 1-1.
Anna-Klara Ahlmer dispatched another wildcard Brit in the form of Izzy Bramhall, who has tons of racketlon silverware from over the years, with a very impressive 21-11, 21-12, 21-17 win – particularly impressive in squash as it’s Izzy’s main sport.
The Swede then beat Holly Ranson 21-15, 12-21, 21-14, 18-8, but Holly, with now their fourth singles encounter, is getting ever closer to ‘AKA’ – signs of a classic rivalry between the pair in a year or two perhaps…