Last weekend, August 23 – 24, Tennis Club Enri hosted for the first time an international 1000 points ranking crossminton tournament – „ICO Crossminton Latvian Open 2019 Powerd by Speedminton®”, with over 90 participants from 10 different countries.
Latvia for the first time got the right to host an international crossminton tournament of this scale, with 500 rating points previously held. The international Crossminton Organization highly appreciated the organizational quality of the tournaments organized so far in Latvia, and this year it was granted the right to organize this level of competition.
On the first day of the competition, Friday evening, the winners of three doubles categories were announced. In the mixed doubles category, the French pair DETE Sonia and GUILLEMINEAU Damien, who in three sets (16:13; 13:16; 17:15) won the Polish duo URBANIK/DRUMLAK. In the Female Doubles category, Latvia’s strongest women’s players, PAEGLE Santa and LOGOSA Agnese, took the honor in the final game of a three-set game (16:14; 12:16; 18:16) against the Czechs ANDRLOVA/ANDRLOVA. In the most representative Open Doubles category, the final featured very strong players who closed the evening of the first day of competition with a beautiful doubles game. The combined Swedish-Czech duo EKBERG Melker and MAKRLIK Petr faced off against the World Champion in singles, Sweden’s HJALMARSON Per and the World Champion in doubles, SCHUSSELER Patrick of Germany. A very interesting three-set game was played and EKBERG Melker and MAKRLIK Petr won (8:16; 16:14; 16:11). This level of crossminton was seen for the first time in Latvia, which proved that crossminton athlete performance can be very exciting and enjoyable for spectators.
On the second day of the competition, Saturday, there were singles categories played. In the first half of the day, the strongest crossminton player in the U12 category was clarified, with SULCSS Markus meeting LOGOSS Rodrigo Martins in the final. U12 Division games are the most emotional and after the loss of the equal first set LOGOSS could not find the missing power, which allowed SULCSS to win the second set convincingly and win the U12 category (16:14; 16: 7). MARTENS Thyago from Belgium remained unbeaten in the U14 youth class without losing any set. SPARE Agate Kristiana from Latvia and Croatian ZUKIC Gala met in the girls’ U18 final. ZUKIC relatively easily won in two sets (11:16; 11:16). It should be noted that SPARE is a U14 category player who is already very good at U18 girls.
Seniors competed in three categories. For men over 50, the semi-finals games dragged on for more than an hour. In the final game two sets (16:8; 16:14) were won by Polish player BOROWIEC Piotr. In the women’s category O40 Latvian LAUVA Irina and Croatian ZRNIC Tatyana met in the final, both players having already played a long and similar game in the group tournament. After three set game in the semi-final LAUVA had not left much power and she easily gave away win to ZRNIC. The men’s O40 final was won in two sets (16:10; 16:11) by Czech player PODVOLOCKY Pavel, who played with Polish player SAWICKI Mariusz.
At the end of the tournament, there were left only top class elimination games of the Female and Open categories. URBANIK Marta from Poland and HORN Andrea from Germany met in the Female finals. URBANIK with two sets (17:15; 16:14) celebrated her victory and won the Latvian Open title in the Female category.
The Open category was the most widely represented, with a total of 24 athletes from 9 countries. Four-time World Champion HJALMARSON Per and European Champion, ranking leader, Czech athlete MAKRLIK Petr met in the final of the competition. The Open Division final was also very tight, with the HJALMARSON winning the game in two sets (16:14; 16:14). After the game, HJALMARSON admitted that this win was very valuable for him because he was not the leader of the rating and did not meet MAKRLIK at the World Cchampionship last July. Here he had the opportunity to prove who is stronger. For HJALMARSON this is the second Latvian Open title.
You can find more pictures of the tournament here: https://www.facebook.com/pg/KrosmintonsLV/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1331146267041498