After a fun day of doubles on Friday, the players attention began to turn to the singles events on Saturday, as they went in pursuit of this year’s titles. The players competed across 13 categories, with many competing in more than one.
The Men’s A started bright and early on the Saturday, with the first round seeing some very close matches, particularly between Mandrin Mouchet and Stefan Urban, with Urban progressing through to the quarterfinals with victory in the infamous and nerve-wracking gummi-arm. The closest of the matches in the quarter finals was between Bastian Böhm and Ray Rykowski, with Böhm having to win tennis to progress, thanks to Rykowski’s 2-point lead into tennis. Böhm won tennis to 11 which saw him join Kanonenberg in the first of the semi-finals. The second semi-final was made up of Malte Thyregod and Nicolas Lenggenhager. In the first semi-final, Böhm had a good start winning table tennis to 16, but saw his lead wiped out in badminton where Kanonenberg won it 15, before Kanonenberg took a convincing lead winning squash to 10. This meant that Kanonenberg only needed 10 in tennis to win the match, which he did 10-7 securing his spot in the final. The second Men’s semi-final was extremely close across all four sports, with Thyregod winning table tennis to 19 before losing badminton 22-24. This meant that Lenggenhager and Thyregod were completely level going into the last two. After squash Thyregod once again took the lead winning to 15, which was a scoreline that he managed to protect in tennis, coming away victorious with a 16-13 victory, seeing him join Kanonenberg in the final. The final was an extremely close affair, being decided by just +4 points. Kanonenberg took table tennis to 17, giving him the early advantage, but Thyregod quickly clawed this back in his strongest sport badminton, winning to 9, giving him a +8 lead, which he was able to build on in squash, winning by the narrowest of margins 22-20. This meant that Thyregod needed 12 points for this year’s title. The tennis was extremely tense, with the match going all the way down to the wire, with Kanonenberg reaching 18 before Thyregod got the necessary 12 to take the title. In the third-fourth play-off Lenggenhager played extremely well against Böhm across the first three sports, as he took home bronze without requiring tennis.
The Women’s A was a round robin this year, with Stine Jacobsen coming out as the decisive winner, only requiring three points in tennis to take gold. This was greatly helped by her decisive victories in badminton, winning against Lucie Hlavacova to 1 and Kirsten I. Kaptein to 5. The battle for silver came down to the match between Hlavacova and Kaptein. Kaptein had a strong performance in table-tennis winning to 10, before Hlavacova launched her come-back across the next three sports, winning to 15, 17 and 12 to bring home second. Kaptein took home the bronze medal.
A 14-man strong draw took to the courts in the men’s B, with the first two seeds getting byes through to the quarter-finals stage. The quarters are where it became extremely interesting with both the first and seconds seeds getting knocked out at this stage, as Borys Wasilewski and Tamás Konfár progressed through into the the semis. Bart Lorkiewicz booked his spot in the next round over Stine Jacobsen, the only women in the draw, by the narrowest margins, as they were level after the four sports, but Lorkiewicz came out on the right side of the gummi-arm. Marek Hrůza completed the semi-final line up with a +18-point victory in his quarter. In the first semi-final Konfár came back from 7-21 down after table tennis against Hrůza to take victory by the end of squash with two single-digit victories in the next sports, 21-5 and 21-2, respectively, which saw him claim his spot in the final. The next semi-final saw Wasilewski join Konfár in the final, after taking a four sport +16 victory over Lorkiewicz, with a 6-6 scoreline in tennis. Despite losing squash to 4 in the final, Wasilewski secured gold, 21-8 in tennis, after taking an early +15 lead from table tennis into badminton, which he then further added to, winning badminton to 17. The third-fourth play-off was decided over just the first three sports with Hrůza taking victory in all three, resulting in him coming third.
The Women’s B was split up into two boxes, with three in box A and four in Box B. After all box matches were completed Carola Von Heimburg progressed out of Box A into the final, having won both of her matches decisively, with the closest being against Ewa Kozlowska where she won 11-11 in tennis. The fight to move out of box A and into the third-fourth play-off was on between Kozlowska and Zuzanna Pastuszka. This match went all the way to tennis with each player winning two sports each. Pastuszka took a big lead into squash after winning table tennis and badminton to 9 and 8 respectively, but Kozlowska clawed the majority of that back with a 21-4 victory in squash before claiming the win 21-12 in tennis which saw her take up the first spot in the third-fourth play off. Similarly, in Box B, the winner Hanna-Lisa Toomjõe won all three of her matches, to book her spot in the final, however, these victories required nerves of steel with the deciding match between her and Karolina Kalicka being won by just four points. It was Kalicka therefore, who joined Kozlowska in the third-fourth play off after beating Natallia Shavel and Lilian Runke. In the final, Carola Von Heimburg put on a very impressive display winning gold with victory in all three of the first sports. The third fourth play-off also saw a decisive victory with Kozlowska winning bronze in just three sports as well, despite losing table tennis to 14.
The Men’s C was a very popular category with 16 players taking to the court. By the semi-final stage it had been whittled down to just four players. Adam Borkowski, Rafal Szlazak and Bartosz Panek all secured their spots with comfortable victories of +20 or more in the quarter final stage. Jakub Otwinowski had a tougher quarter-final, winning by +9 over Jaroslaw Pupiallo. The first semi-final was between Borkowski and Otwinowski and was decided late in tennis. Borkowski went into squash 4 up, but Otwinski put on an impressive squash display winning to 21-15 before progressing into the final with a 21-16 scoreline in tennis. The second semi-final was slightly less tense with Szlazak beating Panek in three sports. This meant that our final line up was confirmed, Otwinowski v Szlazak. The final started off strong for Otwinowski, winning table tennis to 11, but Szlazak quickly turned the match on its head, winning badminton to 12 and squash to 2. In tennis Szlazak finished the match off quickly, with the match ending 2-2, giving him the victory. The third fourth playoff, saw Borkowski taking table tennis 21-6 before Panek won badminton to 17, but Borkowski quickly returned to his winning ways, winning squash 21-19 before securing bronze with a 19-9 scoreline in tennis.
This year’s youngest category the U14’s, saw four talented players take to the court. The winner, Bartosz Wizor, played extremely well especially in the middle two sports, not dropping a game of badminton or squash. Karl Robert Toomjõe beat both Ignacy Szajda and Jakub Roman on his way to silver. This meant that the fight for bronze was between Szajda and Roman. Szajda won table tennis to 5, badminton to 19 and squash to 14, to take the bronze.
The Junior under 16 event was split into one box of three (box A) and one box of 4 (box B). Kacper Serniak won Group B, winning all three of his matches halfway through tennis, which allowed him to progress into Sunday’s final. He was joined there by the winner of group A, Damian Roman, who convincingly won both of his group games before tennis. This meant that in both boxes the battle for a place in the third-fourth play-off was on. In group A, it was between Mikolaj Skwara and Borys Miecznikowski. The match was incredibly even across all sports with Skwara taking both table tennis and squash 22-20. The decisive sport was badminton, which Skwara also won to 14, leaving him requiring 11 points in tennis to reach the bronze medal match, which he achieved at 11-11. Mateus Bachański came second in box B, beating both Karl Robert Toomjõe and Jan Maksymów. In the final Roman took a decisive lead over Serniak in the first two sports, winning to 11 and 5 respectively, but Serniak fought back in squash winning to 5. This left Roman with a 10-point lead heading into tennis, which he maintained, winning tennis and gold 12-6 in tennis. The third-fourth play-off saw Skwara turn-over a 16-point deficit after badminton to take third over Bachański in a brilliant match which finished 21-13 to Skwara in tennis.
It was great to see two girls taking part in the girls’ U16 category this year, with both players putting on an impressive display of sporting ability in their head-to-head match which went deep into tennis. Hanna-Lisa Toomjõe played a brilliant set of table tennis winning to 3 before Liliana Runke clawed back her lead to only +3 with a 21-6 victory in badminton. However, Toomjõe then furthered her lead with a 21-12 score-line in squash and despite an incredibly even game of tennis Runke was unable to overturn Toomjõe’s +12 lead with the match ending 10-10 in tennis, with Toomjõe wining the match and the title.
The senior +40’s was played as one group of 5, with each player having to play four matches each, before a victor could be decided. After many close matches, the Czech Marek Hrůza beat all his Polish opponents to the title. Hůrza’s toughest opponent was Szczepan Rubczynski, who took home the silver medal, with their match being decided by the two 21-3 wins in both table tennis and tennis for Hrůza, which despite Rubczynski’s dominance in both badminton and squash, he could not overturn. Milosz Dużyński came third winning two out of the four of his matches.
The Women’s +40’s saw the four entrants put into one big group, with each player playing everyone before the winner could be decided. Lucie Hlavacova came out victorious after winning all three of her matches, the closest was against Kirsten.I Kaptein, who came second, after another very decisive victory in table tennis, Hlavacova needed to come back across the final three sports, and she eventually won the match16-9 in tennis. The battle for third, took place between Carola Von Heimburg and Natallia Shavel. Heimburg won bronze in just three sports, with two big victories in both table tennis and badminton.
The Seniors +45 saw a return of the monrad format, with 8 players in total entering this event. After the quarter-final stage we were left with our semi-finalists with György Janzer earning his spot with a walkover, whilst Piotr Ostaszyk, Rafal Szlazak and Grzegorz Lorkiewicz all achieved victories of +27 points or more to reach this stage. The semi-finals were marginally closer with Janzer progressing through to the final with a +18-point victory over the first seed Ostaszyk, and Lorkiewicz joined him there with a +20-point win over Szlazak. In the final, Lorkiewicz took home gold without requiring tennis winning 21-9, 21-7, 19-21. The third-fourth play-off did go to tennis, but only for 5 points, with Szlazak winning by +20 overall.
The seniors +50 event was split into two boxes of three. Magnus Edby won box A gaining his spot in Sunday’s final and was quickly joined by Patel Wąsowicz who also won both of his matches in Box B. Both Mads Bjerggaard and Tiger Sowa reached the third-fourth play-off winning one match each in their respective boxes. In the final, Edby came away victorious with a three-sport victory over Wąsowicz. The third-fourth play-off saw Sowa take home bronze with a decisive win in squash which left him needing only 7 in tennis, which he achieved easily winning 7-0.
A box system was also used to split up the six competitors in the 55+ category. Christian Börner came top of box A with two victories mid-way through tennis. Similarly, Carsten Lindhard Jensen won both of his matches in box B during tennis to take the other spot in the final. The third-forth play-off was made up of Dariusz Muc and Albert Pavlovsky who both came second in their boxes. The final did reach tennis; however Jensen had already claimed victory in all three previous sports, which left him requiring two points in tennis, which he achieved with a 2-2 score-line, claiming the final title of this year’s tournament. Third was taken by Muc who won the match 10-8 in tennis.
Another fantastic Polish IWT tournament wraps up. Thanks to the organisers for all their hard work in running such a great event.
