The shock of day one in the Men’s Elite came as young Austrian Leonhard Prager took out number three Nicolas Lenggenhager on a gummiarm.
Prager won 21 11 at table tennis, before Lenggenhager took badminton by the same score and then after the Swiss won squash 21 8, the smart money would probably be on him seeing it out, despite Prager’s strong tennis. However, the Austrian showed great resolve and composure to win it on a gummi.
Britain’s Jonathan Ritter, who had beaten Jimmy Tay before tennis, edged past him in the second round, to set up an intriguing quarter final with Bastian Bรถhm of Germany.
In the top half of the draw, top seed and home favourite Koen Hageraats eased past Steven Wai Kit Cheng and wildcard Zain Magdon-Ismail, +44 and +30.
In the quarter final, he will play Luke Griffiths who beat Henrik Mustonen 21-15, 21-7, 6-21, 17-4 and then Emil Gunnarsson of Sweden before tennis, despite a 22-24 squash loss.
Jesper Ratzer and Malte Thyregod set up a fascinating rematch of their match in their native Denmark earlier this year, which Thyregod won.
But, as ever for World Championships, Ratzer has come prepared. He progressed to the quarters without needing to pick up a tennis racket and his clay court shoes, defeating first Michaล Kurek and then seventh seed Julien Castel.
Thyregod’s route to the quarters was a +16 win over Anant Gupta and a +6 win over another Brit in the form of Matthew Davidson, dominant in the first half, as he often is, in both matches.
In the bottom quarter of the draw, number two seed Joerg Kanonenberg made his way to the quarters fairly easily, +22 against Norway’s Ola Ulmo and +19 over Molnรกr Gergely of Hungary.
Matฤj Volf and Thorsten Lentfer beat Mandrin Mouchet and Keith Lesser respectively in the first round without too much trouble and had, except from the gummiarm, the tightest match of the day, a brilliant encounter full of tight sets that the German won 21-15, 16-21, 21-15, 15-20.
Follow all the action on all our channels, Tournament Software and Streamster.tv.
