Pauline Cavé and Anna-Klara Ahlmer lead the field in a Women’s Elite draw stacked with talent.
The French woman goes into the tournament as number one seed, just above the Swede in the rankings, on the back of impressive singles wins in Switzerland and Denmark this year.
In the first round she plays Brit Matilda Parslow. Tilda will likely take the squash set, but otherwise Pauline seems too strong.
If she comes through that test she plays the winner of Lieselot De Bleeckere and Viivi Paksu. Lieselot, from Belgium, is a wildcard, having been a regular top 10 player in the 2010s, with a huge collection of medals, before she started a family and stepped back from racketlon.
It will be interesting to how sharp she is in what looks set to be a very tight first round, as Viivi is a strong player. To date, her only tournaments have been three of the last four Finnish Opens (2024 she was entered but gave a walkover first round).
In 2023 she beat top 10 player Stephanie Chung on the way to fourth place. In 2024, she beat Kirsten I. Kaptein and Kaisu Anttila to make the final, where she only lost by 11 to Anna-Klara Ahlmer, taking a very impressive 21 4 squash victory against the Swede (Viivi often keeps her opponents’ squash scores within single digits). And this year she won two matches, lost to Anna-Klara in the semis, and took third by again defeating Kirsten I. Kaptein.
Holly Ranson faces Anaïs Ben Mansour in a fascinating tie. So consistent and constant a presence has Holly been on the racketlon circuit that it is easy to forget she is just 18. In fact, as she is also playing in the Girls U21 in Rotterdam, she will, already, play her 200th international racketlon game! From that, she has 31 podiums, most of which are golds.
Anaïs comes into the tournament having just won the Women’s Elite and Women’s Elite Doubles in Berlin, in addition to the Czech Open and the B in this tournament last year.
Anaïs won their only singles encounter to date plus ten, last October in the Czech Open, but younger players typically develop very fast, and especially Holly with her commitment to racket sport. So the good money is on this being even closer than that.
And, rounding off the top half – which, just like the Men’s Elite, has transpired to the more unlucky draw for those in it – another match set to be very tight and probably the tie of the round: Amke Fischer against Stine Jacobsen. Combine this with Holly and Anaïs in the same quarter and it makes what the Dane describes as “a really sh**ty draw”! (But a great one for the spectators…)
The pair’s head-to-head in singles goes back seven years and stands basically exactly even, at 3-2 in Amke’s favour. Amke has won all TT sets; Stine all badminton sets, and typically heavily; and Amke has the slight edge in the latter two, although squash and tennis sets have gone to both players.
First of the other half games is number four seed Mollie Patterson of Great Britain against Austria’s Clarissa Steiner. Mollie, around the fourth best table tennis player in the UK, started racketlon a few years ago and has climbed rapidly up the rankings, having really developed her other three sports. Now standing at No. 5 in the World Rankings, she should have too much for the Austrian.
Adeline Kilchenmann, a stalwart of the top of the World Tour, faces Susanne Docter of the Netherlands, a much less familiar face, who has played just two international tournaments – although they have both been World Championships, in the last two years.
Two years ago she got to the final of the C, Ellie Thomas getting the requisite eight in tennis she needed when Susanne was on 17. Last year she, rightfully, made the jump to the Elite and came 11th/12th. She returns on a wildcard this year and should give Adeline quite a good run for her money.
Alina Reissenauer of Germany, winner of the Girls U18 in Rotterdam last year, faces Dara Ladner, with both previous meetings between them seeing Dara take the TT with a big scoreline, before Alina edged the badminton and secured heavy wins in the final two to take victory.
If the same happens here, she likely faces second seed Anna-Klara Ahlmer, who faces Hong Kong’s Elif Wong in the first round.
If that happens, it will be déjà vu, as the Swede and the young German played each other in the Singles and Teams here last year. AKA, as you would expect, won both times, but in the Singles encounter Alina edged both badminton and squash, so if you add on a year more development for Alina, if it did happen it would not necessarily be plain sailing for AKA.
Follow the action on our channels and Tournament Software.
