Welcome to your review of Day 2 action at the 2025 World Championships in Rotterdam. We had some surprise results, especially in the Women’s quarter finals. Here’s some of the highlights!
Women’s Round 1
All four seeds in the Women’s Singles won through to the quarter finals in the morning, the closest being Kirsten Kaptein who defeated Dara Ladner by just one point.
Kirsten was very happy and said that both her and Dara played well. But the Dutchwoman’s main goal was to win the Women’s Seniors +40 event, which she has achieved. Congratulations Kirsten!
Myriam Enmer has avenged her loss from the Berlin Open, defeating Holly Ranson by 18 points. Myriam said she was “happy to win this tough first [round match]”.
Stine Jacobsen, showed composure in her first round match against Stephanie Chung. Despite winning the match before tennis, the defending champion was full of praise for her opponent.
“It was a good match. A tough match. I think Steph is really improving, but the key point was maybe winning tt.”
Asked about her quarter final against 2022 World Champion, Myriam Enmer, Stine said “it will be a tough match, but I’m ready.”
More on that later!
Men’s Quarter Finals
First up was the most anticipated match of the World Championships: Luke Griffiths vs. Jesper Ratzer, with a massive 9 World Championships between them.
Both players were fired up from the start, audibly celebrating their own winners in table tennis. It was more or less point for point all the way to 19-19 before Luke took the last two points.
In case there weren’t enough spectators already, everyone wanted to get a glimpse of the badminton set – both players’ strongest sport.
The intensity was high, both players taking the shuttle early with delicate flicks to deceive one another. Griffiths’ intent to take the shuttle into the net paid dividends. Livestreaming commentator James Pope said that Luke “couldn’t have asked for a better start” as he raced to a 9-1 lead.
The change of ends brought about a change in energy as the Dane took back the momentum. However, from 13-7, the Brit picked up his intensity again. A couple of uncharacteristic errors from Ratzer gifted Griffiths the set 21-10.
So the most highly anticipated match of the tournament was effectively all over at the halfway point. Or was it?
In last year’s semi final between these two Jesper won the squash 21-9. In his recent interview with FIR, he said “I think I over-performed a little bit in squash.” He would need to repeat this to stay a chance.
Ratzer came out firing in the squash, dominating the T, whilst Griffiths struggled for length. Luke said later that, “he was playing well, I didn’t quite hit my level,” and the Dane won the squash 21-8, letting out a scream when the final point was once. The scores were level, meaning whoever wins the tennis set would win the match. Game on!
Despite the high stakes of the match, the sportsmanship between the two players was always maintained. After an unclear line call at 3-2, they agreed to replay the point. From 4-4, Luke took the edge, but Jesper fought back to level the set again at 13-13.
A couple of errors from the Dane, followed by a serve-volley brought up 6 match points for the Brit, which he achieved at 21-15.
Meanwhile, 5th seed Koen Hageraats was taking on joint World Number 1 Sylvain Ternon. As expected, Koen dominated table tennis and Sylvain dominated badminton. With the game in the balance, Koen worked Sylvain hard in the squash with superior length to win the set 21-7.
Restricting Koen to less than 10 points in tennis was always going to be tough, but it was looking likely when the Frenchman won the first five points. From there, it appeared that Sylvain was physically spent and Koen won 10 points in a row to book his place in the semi finals.
World Number 3 Joerg Kanonenberg and World Number 6 Kresten Hougaard have had some close battles in recent times. Usually Hougaard takes the lead with big wins in table tennis and squash, before Kanonenberg works his way back into the match in tennis.
This time Joerg was able to keep the scores close in the first three sports and actually took a 2-point lead into the tennis. He secured the win with a 21-10 tennis victory.
The last elite match of the afternoon was Nicolas Lenggenhager from Switzerland vs. Leon Griffiths from Great Britain. Leon won all three sports to win the match by 25 points.
Coming shortly: Day 2 Evening Session review
Can’t wait for Part 2? View the draws: Men’s Singles | Women’s Singles
