The players were on court early on Saturday for the start of the singles events, with the early rounds being played on the Saturday and the semi-finals and finals being completed on the Sunday.
Women’s Elite Singles:
The Women’s Elite Singles kicked off in the group stages, with the first seed Myriam Enmer taking on Svetlana Kasilova and Wan Yin Lui in group A. Myriam secured two strong victories and progressed through to Sunday’s final. This meant that the battle to claim a spot in Sunday’s third-fourth play-off was on, between Svetlana and Wan. Svetlana claimed victory without requiring tennis and therefore, put herself in contention to claim bronze on Sunday.
In Group B, Elif Wong beat Crystal Ho Suet Ying, taking the match 15-13 in tennis. Sadly, Crystal was forced to withdraw from the competition, meaning that the fight to advance through to Sunday’s final was between Stephanie Chung (the second seed), and Elif Wong. The match went all the way down to the wire, with both players winning two sports each and a gummy arm being required to determine the victor. After one very tense point, Elif won the match and secured her spot in Sunday’s final. This meant that Steph set up a match between herself and Svetlana for third.
The Women’s Final was an extremely close affair with Myriam losing table tennis to 13 before claiming badminton 21-19. This meant that Elif took a +6 lead into squash, and with squash being her strongest of the four, it was possible for Elif to put Myriam under lots of pressure. However, Myriam did what champions do and played her best squash when it really mattered and won to 13. This meant that Myriam now had the 2-point lead into tennis, and with it being her strongest of the four, the current World Champion was never going to lose from that position. She went on to win the tennis 21-13 and claim the Women’s title.
Stephanie secured third in the Women’s Singles with an impressive three sport victory over Svetlana.
The first round of the Men’s Singles started on Saturday morning, with all but one of the matches requiring tennis. This whittled the 16 strong draw down to the final 8 who all played their quarter-final matches that evening. The closest quarter-final was between Steven Wai Kit Cheng and Tsz Cheong Fung, which was decided by a +4 victory, with Steven reaching 21 in tennis before Tsz achieved the necessary 14 to take the win. After all four quarterfinals had been completed, our two semifinals were confirmed:
Koen Hageraats v Matěj volf and Steven Wai Kit Cheng v Nicolas Lenggenhager.
There were two standout performances from our seeds, with Koen and Nicolas both winning before tennis to secure their spots in the final.
In the final, both players were dominant in their strongest sports. Koen won table tennis to 5, before Nicolas returned the favour and beat Koen at badminton to 5. The match was ultimately won in squash with Koen securing a 21-3 scoreline, meaning that he went into tennis only requiring 4 points to win the title, which he achieved with a 4-1 victory.
In the third-fourth play-off Matěj won the bronze without requiring tennis, as he was dominant in all three sports, with his best performance coming in badminton where he won to 6.
B, C and First Timers’ singles:
In the Men’s B, Guidi Weijel, Sergei Seregin, Hui Sing Wong and Raghav Jatia all secured their spots in the semi-finals with the closest match in the quarter-final stage being played between Hui and He Nam Lee, which saw Hui take victory by just 2-points. Guidi and Hui then went onto claim their places in Sunday’s final with +16 and +22 victories respectively over their opponents. Despite two very close sports in the final, with Guidi only winning badminton 24-22, before losing squash 21-23, his win to 12 at the start of the match in table tennis, put him on track for the title, which he sealed with a 13-5 scoreline in tennis. Sergei took bronze with a narrow victory of +2-points over Raghav.
In the Women’s B, Yin Tung Lam, Wing Yan Li, Clarissa Li, and Sum Yi Tan all earned their spots in the semi-finals with comfortable wins over their first-round opponents, with the closest match being a +13 victory for Sum. Sum and Yin then furthered this achievement by progressing through to the final with +17 and +14 victories respectively over Clarissa and Wing. In the final Yin only required 6 points in the tennis to take gold, which she secured with a 6-1 scoreline.
In the first round of the Men’s C singles all four seeds received byes though to the quarterfinal stage. The seeds where then joined in the quarter finals by Bong Tai Shu, Yin Kiu Kevin Leung, Kwan King Douglas Chiu, and Tsun Ming Melvin Lo. The quarter-finals saw four shock results, with all four seeds being knocked out. This meant that Bong, Kiu, Kwan and Tsun all reached the Semi’s. Bong and Tsun, then both claimed victory in their semi-finals, to set up Sunday’s final. In the final, the match went all the way to tennis, before Tsun claimed the title with a 21-12 win in tennis. Yin took bronze with a + 3-point victory over Kwan.
The first timers’ category saw many of the closest and most exciting matches of the whole tournament. Both semi-finals were decided by the tightest of margins. Chi Ho Russell Chan registered a +2-point victory over Siddharth Argarwal, whilst NG Anson needed a gummy arm to get past Anthony Lau, despite recording a 21-0 win in table tennis. The final also went all the way down to the wire, with a gummy arm once again being required to decide the winner. This time NG came out on the wrong side of the one point shoot out with Chi taking gold. Anthony took bronze over Siddharth in the third-place play-off.
Juniours:
The under-12’s was simply a one match play off between Krishav Jatia and Hank Zhang. Hank took first place, with a 5-point victory over Krishav.
The Under 16’s started in the group stage with Raghav Jatia topping group A with two wins, securing his spot in the final, whilst Nga Man Pong claimed victory over Lut Kahn Samuel Lau, to reach the third-fourth play off. In Group B, Ka Hin Kan also won both of his matches to join Raghav in the final. Whilst Hank booked his spot in the third-fourth play-off with the win over Krishav Jatia. In the final Raghav took gold with a three-sport victory over Ka, and Nga took bronze.
Seniors:
Another category which started in the group stage was the Senior +40’s. In Group A, Keith Lesser topped the group with victories over Sergei Seregin and Samuel K S LI. Samuel then sadly had to retire, which meant that Keith progressed through to the final and Sergei to the third-fourth play off. Jonathan Cassier joined Keith in the final with two wins in group B, while Hirona Sudo reaching the third-fourth play off with a comfortable win over Hui Zhang. In the final Jonathan Cassier took the title with a 17- 10 victory in tennis. Hirona secured third place.
The Senior +45s was a round robin. Bong Tai Shu took gold with three victories, Dawei Feng claimed silver with two wins, and Ka Chun Lau was forced to retire, meaning that Vishal Jatia got Bronze.
In the over 50’s Samuel K S LI came first with three wins, including a narrow victory over Simon Lau, who came in second. Charlie Chow took third, beating Hoi Sun Chan.
The over 60’s was also played as a round robin, with Frank Kleiber taking Gold over the first seed Christian Börner, who came in second and with David Lau being forced to retire Esther Ma came third.
Doubles:
Not all the doubles events finished on Friday, so here is a round up of all the events that finished on Saturday:
The Men’s Elite doubles final went all the way to tennis, with Nicolas Lenggenhager and Koen Hageraats eventually taking gold with a +9 victory. Steven Wai Kit Cheng and Kevin Ho Chung NG, came second, whilst Bridge Yan Kiu Lam and Bryan Leung got bronze.
In the Women’s B doubles Ho Ching Chan and Sum Yi Tan, claimed a narrow victory over Yuk Ming Cheung and Svetlana Kasilova. Yin Tung Lam and Wing Yan Li came third, with a +25-point win.
The final of the Men’s B doubles was also completed on Saturday with the Frank Kleiber and Leigh Sands taking the title with a 21-5 scoreline in the tennis. The fourth seeds Hei Nam Lee and Bong Tai Shu came third.
The senior +40 doubles was just a straight shoot out between two pairs, Tsz Chung Chan and Samuel K S LI v Simon Lau and Keith Lesser. After a great match, the title went to Tsz and Samuel.
Tournament round up:
This year’s tournament has received lots of praise from the international players, with Nicolas Lenggenhager saying that it was the high-quality facilities and amazing team of organisers which made the tournament so enjoyable. He particularly commented on the organiser’s incredible professionalism and friendliness. Myriam Enmer gave a similar account, saying that the team behind the tournament were extremely friendly and put her completely at ease. Leigh Sands also mentioned that it was the hospitality and friendliness of the organisers and all the participants in the tournament which added to his time at the competition. When asked what she enjoyed most about the tournament Stephanie commented that, “Playing the HK tournament is always a highlight for me — my favourite stop on the tour. Competing in my hometown means so much, and the HK racketlon community truly makes it special. The level of play is high across all four sports, they are incredibly supportive, and they take such great care of us throughout the weekend. I can’t wait to come back next year. It’s always an unforgettable experience on and off the court.”
Thank you, to everyone who was involved in the running and organisation of the tournament and congratulations to all of this year’s winners.
