Racketlon World Championships 2019


Here it is, a tad late yes I know, but I am finally writing my post about the 2019 Racketlon World Championships which took place in Leipzig in November. Just quickly going to go through the basic principle of racketlon for any unaware readers: very simply you play the four sports of table tennis, badminton, squash and tennis one after another, all up to 21 and whoever gets the most points across them wins! Now I had zero clue what to expect from this experience, apart from the obvious that I may have to pick up a couple of rackets in the duration of my time there. So, in the relatively early hours of a Tuesday morning I made my way from Humberside to Amsterdam to Berlin, and in that time made sure I submitted an RE essay about evangelism. My first encounter of a GB teammate came at Berlin Tegel Airport.  As I was waiting, very anxiously may I say, for that racket bag to be in luggage collection I met a fellow U21 team player, Cherisse,  the first of quite a few people I can safely say I will be friends with for a long time.
 After fourteen hours of travelling you may think that I would be desperate to go straight to my hotel room and go to sleep, but instead I chose to go over to the Sport Park and by this time I think it actually was the next day. The main reason for this was so I could meet up again with one of my closest friends on the rackelton tour, Claudia, my opponent later in the tournament, but this did not bother us as we still spent all of our free time helping each other practise our weaker sports and trying to help relieve each other of the stress of year eleven. Anyways, back to the actual early hours of Wednesday, and my first experience of Sport Park Leipzig involved the challenge of trying to make a mat stay down on the badminton courts, the solution apparently, put a load of plants around them and try and make it look pretty. So, there I was, along with some others, lugging plants from various points around the venue and arranging them in the most artistic way possible, whilst also bearing in mind that people did actually have to play badminton in this area. After a much needed lie in, Claudia, Cherisse and I went to try out the courts for the first time, even though we did get slightly distracted half way through as we tried to get on the livestream, and then proceeded to laugh at how strange we all looked. 

My one and only trip into Leipzig took place on this day, but I was slightly saddened by the fact the Christmas Markets were only half constructed so I was just forced to try and get a look at some Christmas trees from behind fences, I didn’t see very many. On Wednesday evening the GB U21 2nd team was united for the first time, and at practice that night I actually only spent half of it on a table tennis court, the other half was under a GB flag getting to know my teammates, and also featuring on the UK Racketlon Instagram, cheers Lindsay! Thursday was the first of many matches that would be at eight in the morning, and the nerves and excitement were both there as this was my first match in the team event, my first match playing for Great Britain. 

 We had two matches this day, the first against Afghanistan, and it was amazing to see them at the World Championships and this was a thoroughly enjoyable match which we were victorious in. Next up we faced the team who would eventually go on to win it, Finland, this strong and experienced side proved too much for us but playing tough opponents brought out the best in all three of us, and hey, I was still able to win my squash. One of the highlights of this day was watching the GB Elite Team win against Denmark. This went right down to the wire, but the juniors created a great atmosphere and as we all sat there nervously watching the last tennis match we were all relieved when we got the points needed and were through to the final against Germany. Friday saw the team event come to a conclusion. We started off with a loss to our GB teammates in the first team which meant we would be in the 3/4 play off later on in the evening, but this was a tough ask against a strong France team so we finished in 4th place. 
This was also the day for my first singles match, in the Womens C category,  where I was up against the number 1 seed. After managing to only be three down going into squash (quite an achievement for me it has to be said) I was able to secure the win early into tennis. Now for the big event of the day, the World Cup final. As my team match against France overlapped with this game I was sadly only able to watch the match from squash onwards. The Elite Team put in an incredible performance however and ended up winning the World Cup for the first time, the juniors were yet again in full force whilst watching the tennis. I think in the end there was almost a competition going on between us to see who could make the most noise with those inflatable stick things that I still have not learnt the name for.
 You could say Saturday was quite the busy day, with five matches. I started off early once again with a Womens C match against the eventual winner, that kind of gives away who won that match, but I still won my squash match, and got to maintain that unbeaten record in the tournament. Now, the next four matches are somewhat blurry in my memory, this may partly been down to the fact that my brain had pretty much gone into shutdown by my third match. My first singles match in the U16 girls tournament was against last year’s runner up, and it was safe to say I was slightly nervous. I have never been one to let my nerves show on court though, and after a solid (for my standards) table tennis performance, and possibly one of my best badminton matches I have ever played, (lots of credit going to Dan for the help he gave me there!), I had set myself up well, winning squash comfortably and succeeding in getting the points needed in tennis. 
In my second U16 match, I was able to win all four sports against a player I had already met when playing the Afghanistan team, this meant that if I won my next match in this event, I would be World Champion. But wait, we have another Womens C match first, don’t fall asleep on me yet, like I was very close to doing at all parts of this day. This match was an extremely tough test for me, I was dealing with the dilemma of being absolutely exhausted and knowing that I had what was effectively a final for my next match, and also being way too competitive to play any easier and give myself a rest. After what was really not the best squash I had ever played, dropping one or two too many points, I was down going into tennis, but somehow and I honestly have no idea how I did this I managed to pull off a great set of tennis, despite literally being in tears due to tiredness. Anyway I won this match because of this miraculous result in tennis and also lots of help across the whole game from the lovely Matilda! 
If I had not won I don’t believe that I would have had the same levels of motivation going into my last game as I did, as the win gave me some energy back. My last match was against Claudia, as mentioned earlier, which was a very strange thing to deal with psychologically, given that we had practically spent the whole tournament with each other. The approach that I took in this game was to stay calm; I knew I needed to not let lost points get to me as this would mean a loss of focus and would likely cost me the game. This seemed to work well in table tennis as even at 17-6 down, I was able to pull the final score back to 21-12, which I think was down to the fact that I simply would not let my nerves overtake me. The badminton was a fairly close encounter throughout the game with Claudia edging it 21-19. Squash was not easy by any stretch of the imagination and even though I won 21-3, I had not been pushed that hard in the whole competition. But in racketlon every point counts, so I knew how important it was to retrieve everything. Needing 15 points in tennis, I strangely did not decide to play ‘racketlon tennis’, then again this may have been the tiredness clouding my judgement, but I decided to come up to the net on most opportunities I was given, and on this occasion it paid off. So, that match left me World Champion I guess, but all of that was left on the court, immediately after the match as Claudia and I went straight to watch Elite Semi-Finals. Rivalries between good friends don’t last long.
 Saturday was also the night for the Players’ Party, we’ll just leave that one right there I think. Sunday, the final day of the competition, and all good things must come to an end. I was one of the lucky ones who only had an afternoon match on this last day, instead of having to play a match at eight on five hours of sleep. A win in my last match of the tournament in the Womens C meant I came 5th in this category having, as I said earlier, only lost to the eventual winner of the tournament. And as the elite finals ended, the tournament was over. I’m currently writing this at a very early hour in the morning, as I weirdly always do with my blog posts, but regardless I still don’t really have the words to describe this experience, suffice to say it was pretty incredible to say the least. Whilst I have the chance though I want to say thank you to my mum and dad for possibly being the most supportive parents ever, again I don’t have any words to express how grateful I am that I was able to go and do this. Finally thanks to my sponsors IPROSports and PDHSports, for providing me with the kit and equipment that was with me in Leipzig, it was great to have you supporting me whilst I was out there as well!




Comments

  1. Brilliant Lex. Thoroughly enjoyed reading about your success. The most successful member of the TTT quiz team 🥇

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