The FIR Racketlon World Tour Finals are on this weekend at the Willingdon Sports Club in Mumbai. We’ve already covered the Women’s draw in Part 1 of our preview. Now it’s time to meet the Men!
2025 has been a big year for Leon Griffiths. He won the World Championships in Men’s Doubles, Mixed Doubles, Teams and for the first time, the Men’s Singles. Is there anything else for the Brit to win? Yes, he’s never won the World Tour Finals!
“Obviously it’s a real honour to qualify for the tour finals in India, it’s gonna be a tough tournament.” the World Number 1 said. “The nature of it means there are no easy matches at all, so looking forward to it.”
Nicolas Lenggenhager was an ever-present force on the 2025 World Tour. His best result of the year was winning the Austrian Open.
The Swiss player listed many reasons why he’s pleased to have qualified for the World Tour Finals, “to get the opportunity to travel to a great and well organized tournament, where I’ll be able to play interesting and high-level matches, in a nice venue with good quality courts.”
A pair of Germans occupy qualifying positions 3 and 4.
Joerg Kanonenberg won the 2025 Hamburg Open, but placed greater pride on coming 4th at the World Champs.
“Having qualified for the World Tour Finals is a nice reward for putting in the time and effort across the year, to play a good number of tournaments and having been able to achieve good results,” said the World Number 3.
“It’s also a great opportunity and motivation to return to India for playing racketlon and enjoying the great hospitality (and food! Actually, mainly food) as well as the world class facilities.”
Bastian Böhm is the current Under 21 World Champion, and reached the final of the 2025 French Open – his first podium finish in elite singles. To reach the final, he defeated Kresten Hougaard in a Gummiarm. He described the match as “my best win this year. I played my best in every sport.”
The young German isn’t putting too much pressure on himself to win in India. “I just enjoy traveling and competing at the moment. I am really looking forward to spend a good time with all the guys in India.”
Koen Hageraats finished 3rd in the World Championships and won the French Open, the German Open and the Swiss Open in 2025. However, he rates winning the World Men’s Doubles with Leon Griffiths as his best result of the year.
Asked about playing in India this weekend, the table tennis star said, “Well obviously it is amazing to play racketlon outside of Europe. The facilities are great and the food is superb, so it is by far my favourite tournament of the year.”
Julien Castel only made his international racketlon debut last year at the French Open. Later that year, he won the C Grade World Championships and moved up to the elite categories following that win.
“My best result of 2025 was the IWT Racket Masters Augsburg,” the Frenchman explains, “where I beat Bastian Böhm by 2pts and then played a very good match against Luke Griffiths in the semi-finals (19/15 at tennis for him).”
He is looking forward to the World Tour Finals, because it’s “an opportunity to challenge the best players at the moment in a great place, so I can gain some experience for the future.”
Malte Thyregod came runner-up at the Czech Open last month, but rates his run of matches at the Inventist Racketlon Open in Istanbul higher, including coming close to beating former World Number 1, Sylvain Ternon.
Check out his video below, explaining why he’s excited for this tournament!
Leon Sam is another junior who has shot up the rankings lately. 12 months ago, he was ranked 74 in the world, before a string of good results has earned himself a place in the World Tour Finals. He values his results at the Austrian Open most, where he finished on the podium in Elite singles for the first time.
“And in doubles I also have some really good results, like winning the U21 World Championships and the Austrian Open, both with Bastian Böhm,” the Austrian said.
“I‘m really looking forward to playing my first World Tour Finals and to be honest, it‘s really cool that we play the Finals in India this year.”
How will it work?
Two groups of four mean there are a lot of matches to be played on the Saturday. As such, the sprint format will be used in the group stage.
We already know that the top two seeds, Leon Griffiths and Nicolas Lenggenhager, are in separate groups. But the other 6 players will be drawn at random.
After all group matches have been completed, the top two from each group will play off in crossover semi finals on Sunday morning. The World Tour Finals final will be in the afternoon. All matches on Sunday will be played in full, first to 21 points.
Men’s draws will be available shortly: Group A | Group B | Position 1-4 | Position 5-8
Coming soon: Preview of the SWT Indian Open
