Svatopluk Rejthar

Next into the Hall of Fame comes Svatopluk Rejthar (Svata) representing the Czech Republic. Born in 1952 and after being active in many different sports as a child, he began playing racket sports when he was 30 years old. His best sport was Tennis, followed by Badminton, Table Tennis and Squash.
Although he has won several medals in senior categories, Svata is not part of this Hall of Fame for his medals earned on the court, but rather because since 2005 he has organised international tournaments of such a high level of quality. His tournaments are often credited as the best on the FIR World Tour, with a tell tale sign of this being the ability to always attract an especially strong women´s category. His biggest victory was putting on the first ever European Championships in 2016 with 320 players participating the tournament was a huge success. On top of this, Svata is also doing a lot to make Racketlon more popular in the Czech Republic and abroad.
In contrast to these successes, his biggest defeat took place on court when he lost in the second round of the World Championships in Vienna in 2005. After a superbly played Tennis set (21:4), a Gummiarm was played to decide the match and unfortunately while chasing a ball Svata slipped on the surface (carpet with granulate) and missed the ball!
Earlier that year he made his debut on the Racketlon courts playing in the first Czech Open. In sport Svata prefers versatility and diversity and he admires athletes who excel in multiple disciplines. “Racketlon is like sex, once you start you can’t stop it” was the slogan on t-shirts of some participants of the first Czech Open.
Looking to the future of the sport, Svata thinks Racketlon needs two things: one is to ensure the keeping of the organisation, the rules and the competition and the other one is to get money into the game. Both are important and have to perform on a high level to advance Racketlon.