It was another gold medal for both Kresten and Stine as they won the men’s and women’s doubles with their partners. Kresten Hougaard and Leon Griffiths came into the tournament as the top seeds. They faced second seeds Bastian Böhm and Joerg Kanonenberg in the final.
Leon and Kresten were the stronger pair, taking the first three sports 21-12 21-17 and 21-13, clinching the title at 1-1 in tennis. (+21 21-12 21-17 21-13 1-1). British duo Jack Bishop and Alex Du Noyer finished third, beating Andreas Kotala and Jan Port +8 (15-21 22-20 21-17 21-13).
This is Leon’s 22nd men’s doubles title and Kresten’s 16th title!
Stine Jacobsen added another title to her collection which makes it 12 women’s doubles titles for the Danish player. Together with junior world no 1 and current women’s world no 5 Holly Ranson they proved to be a tough pair to beat.
They faced top seeds Kirsten Kaptein and Stephanie Chung in the final, who as expected took table tennis 21-11. Jacobsen and Ranson fought back taking badminton and squash 21-2 and 21-11 before claiming their first title together with 3-3 in tennis. The overall score was +19 )11-21 21-2 21-11 3-3).
British duo Kirsten Atkinson and Mollie Patterson finished third, beating Hungarians Nora Barta-Boncz and Marianna Palotainé Pozsár +29 (21-6 21-17 21-11).
Men’s Doubles | Women’s Doubles
Stephanie Chung and Stine Jacobsen face each other in the women’s final this morning after they got through their semi-finals yesterday. Stine saw off her doubles partner Holly in the quarter-finals, taking the match +19 (21-8 21-19 -21-17 4-3) before beating Lucie Hlavacova in a dominant performance by +39 (21-7 21-7 21-10) to reach another final.
Steph Chung beat no 2 seed Kirsten Kaptein by +10 (21-14 7-21 20-20 21-4) to reach the semi-finals. She then went on to beat up and coming player Mollie Patterson in a thriller match by +3 (3-21 23-15 21-6 21-13). Mollie is a fantastic table tennis player, taking table tennis 21-3 and edging out badminton 25-23 before Steph turned the match around taking squash 21-6 and tennis 21-13. She is now in her second final of the season and it’s only March!
It’s an exciting time for racketlon as European Champion Rav Rykowski is back in action after a long break! The home favourite managed to beat Bastian Böhm by only two points to secure his spot in the quarter-finals, taking a high quality match +2 (14-21 21-6 21-12 5-20).
He then went on to beat Anant Gupta +20 (19-21 21-8 21-15 5-2). He will now face no 2 seed and defending Champion Joerg Kanonenberg who batled past Matěj Volf in the quarterfinals with a score of +4 (12-21 21-12 20-22 21-15).
On the top half of the draw doubles partners Leon Griffiths and Kresten Hougaard will be on opposite sides of the net this time. Leon beat Jesper Hedlund +15 (11-21 21-6 21-10 6-7) in the quarter-finals, whilst Kresten battled past Martin Sopko, taking the match +5 (21-12 15-21 21-12 10-17).
If we could have one noticable result from yesterday it’s from the first timer’s category, where Ralf Hansen was down by 21 points before tennis, he managed to win 21-0 and the gummi arm which is an amazing result! Especially since this is his first racketlon tournament ever! Well done Ralf, this shows again how amazing and unpredictable our sport can be!
Follow the results here
