Luke Griffiths (L) vs Leon Griffiths (R) in the final of the World Singles Championships 2025 at the Victoria sports centre in Rotterdam.
Photo credit: Gerhard Nel
Racketlon World Singles Championships 2025
GB once again showed its dominance on the world racketlon scene as an incredible 66 GB players came away with 18 medals across all of the singles categories. With a gold medal in the U10s all the way to a silver medal in the O70s, GB was out in force. Read on below for more about each medal British players achieved!
Singles Medals
Gold: 7
Silver: 7
Bronze: 4
World Champions 2025 (GB)
Men’s World Champion: Leon Griffiths
Under 10 World Champion: Charles Flatman
Girls U21 World Champion: Holly Ranson
Women’s O45 World Champion: Alice Flatman
Women’s O50 World Champion: Jo Shelley
Women’s O55 World Champion: Jo Shelley
Men’s O65 World Champion: Martyn Langston
Men’s World Champion: Leon Griffiths
Men’s Runner Up: Luke Griffiths
The final of the 2025 World Singles Championship saw World Number 1 Leon Griffiths take on his younger brother and defending World Champion, Luke Griffiths, in an epic showdown which had everybody on the edge of their seats.
Seeded 1 as defending world champion, Luke arguably had the tougher draw, with joint world number 1 (with Leon) Sylvain Ternon and 6 times world champion Jesper Ratzer in his half. However, up-and-coming Dutchman Koen Hageraats took out world number 1 Sylvain Ternon in the quarter-finals with an impressive +17 win, setting up a semi-final with either Luke or Jesper. Luke vs Jesper was a repeat of last year’s semi-final, which Luke won in a nail-biting epic throughout, winning the tennis 21-18 to get to the final with a +3 win. This year’s match was no different, with many people feeling that Jesper had enough this time to get past the world champion. The scores were extremely similar, however Luke pulled it out of the bag in the tennis, producing some extremely confident shots to win +6. He then defeated Koen +8 to make it through to the final.
On the other side of the draw, Leon demonstrated his excellent level across the sports, only needing to play 6 points of tennis (vs Matthew Davidson, his GB teammate) on his way to the final, beating #7 Nicolas Lenggenhager and #4 Joerg Kanonenberg convincingly.
The final was a repeat of the 2023 world championship final, which Luke Griffiths won +7 after some incredible squash and tennis to seal his second title. All eyes were on the court this year as Leon set out to end his brother’s streak and win his first world championship. With a convincing lead in the badminton, it looked as though Leon had got enough of a lead that the match would be going in his favour pretty soon. However, Luke did not give up and fought back to take the badminton set 21-19, meaning Leon was +2 going into the squash. The squash was long and hard, and Leon’s consistency and movement saw him take the set 21-15, giving him a +8 point lead going into the tennis. This meant that he needed 14 points in the tennis to take the title. The spectators were wondering – would the fact Leon didn’t have to play (nearly) any tennis throughout the tournament help or hinder him? The answer – his tennis was consistent, hard-hitting, if a little tentative at points, and got him over the line with the score at 14-16. With that +6 win, Leon is the 2025 WORLD SINGLES CHAMPION! Read a more in-depth article about the final HERE.
Women’s O50 World Champion: Jo Shelley
Women’s O55 World Champion: Jo Shelley
As she lifts the trophy for the O50s title in 2025, Jo Shelley joins just two other players (Luke Griffiths and Christine Seehofer) to win 7 consecutive World Titles. Jo, however, is the first player to win 7 consecutive World Titles in the same category. What an incredible achievement – this woman is a machine! Along with very solid table tennis and badminton, Jo showed her squash dominance throughout, only losing 10 points of squash over 3 matches. If that wasn’t enough, she also won the over 55s title, not needing to play tennis to add yet another World Championship title to her collection.
Women’s O45 World Champion: Alice Flatman
Women’s O40 runner up: Alice Flatman
In the O45s, Alice breezed through her group stage matches into the final, where she came up against Aurélie Bujeau. After a 21-2 table tennis victory, Alice squeaked 3 points in the badminton to be +1 going into the squash. After an epic battle where neither player got more than one or two points ahead throughout, she held her nerve during the last few points to win the squash 22-20. This meant Alice needed 19 in the tennis to win, and she closed it out with points to spare, winning 19-14 to win the title and become O45 world champion!
Alice also came runner up in the O40s category, with a close loss vs top seed Kirsten Kaptein in a match that could have gone either way! The Flatmans’ medal cabinet must be bursting full now!
Under 10 World Champion: Charlie Flatman
An under 10 category must have felt incredible for Charlie, who is used to playing U12 or U14s and holding his own against players much older than him!
He dominated this U10 category, not needing to play any tennis and in fact only losing one set (table tennis) throughout the tournament! He also came 9th in the U12 category. Charlie is definitely one to watch for the future!
Girls U21 World Champion: Holly Ranson
Holly Ranson defended her U21 World Championship title in style, only needing to play 3 points of tennis in the final vs Mathilde Deleuran to take the trophy. She shows how dangerous she is on the women’s tour, coming 9th in the women’s elite singles after a tough first round match vs Women’s World Champion Myriam Enmer, pushing her all the way, before winning her next two matches convincingly.
Men’s O65 World Champion: Martyn Langston
Martyn pulled out an incredible performance in the semi-final of the over 65s, with a +2 win over #1 seed and defending champion Peter Sákovics. He needed 12 points in the tennis, and managed to reach 12 as Peter was on 20, narrowly avoiding the gummi-arm! In the final, Martyn beat #3 seed and last year’s runner up Dany Lessard with a huge win, only needing 1 point in tennis to become over 65 World Champion.
Men’s B runner up: Jamie Watkin-Rees
After a 9th place finish in the B grade last year, Jamie showed just how much he has improved, with an excellent string of wins including over #8 seed Steven Wai Kit Cheng to make the B grade final. He faced a very tough opponent in unseeded Botond Francia, who has been making a comeback after some excellent junior results pre-2018. In the final, Botond proved too strong in the middle two sports for Jamie, who no doubt will be taking lots away to improve on for next year.
Boys U18 runner up: Chase Burgess
Chase beat the #3 seed and then #1 seed to make his way to the U18 final, and showed his improving prowess in table tennis, not losing a set on the way. In the final he played #2 seed Leonhard Prager whose table tennis proved too strong for Chase. It was an excellent match and Chase should be very pleased with a silver medal in this tough category.
Boys U21 runner up: Anant Gupta
In Anant’s final year of U21s, he showed his consistent level with some close matches, needing just 10 points in both the quarter-final and semi-final, to set up a final with #1 seed and boys’ world number 1 Bastian Bohm. The first 3 sports were extremely close however Bastian’s tennis was extremely strong on the day. A silver medal is a great improvement on 5th place in last year’s event.
Men’s O40 runner up: Keith Lesser
Senior World Number 1 Keith Lesser was chasing his first senior world championships title and had 3 solid wins to make it to the final, where he faced the unseeded Swede Emil Gunnarsson in a highly anticipated final. After a long and tiring badminton, Keith then had a lot of work to do in the squash, but Emil proved too consistent and he went into the tennis needing just 10 points for the title. No doubt Keith will be back next year to try and win, along with retaining his number 1 rank!
Men’s O70 runner up: Julian Clapp
Julian dominated his group, winning all 3 matches with only one point of tennis needed, and only 12 points of squash lost across them. Great Britain isn’t known as the squash nation for nothing! He faced racketlon legend Graham King in the final, and it was a lengthy battle between the two. Graham took a lead into the tennis and clinched the title getting the necessary 6 tennis points to win.
Boys U16 third place: Daniel Austin
Dan breezed through to the semi-final, not needing any tennis, before coming up against last year’s U16 runner up Borys Wasilewski, whose 21-8 badminton put him too far ahead for Dan to come back in the tennis. Dan beat #2 seed Romeo Sam in an excellent performance to claim the bronze medal.
Women’s O60 third place: Sarah Ball
Sarah faced some tough opponents in the O60s round robin. With two matches going all the way to the end of the tennis, Sarah just fell short of clinching the wins, taking 3rd place.
Women’s B third place: Ellie Thomas
Last year’s C grade world champion Ellie proved she is turning into a very solid player, with great wins on her way to the semi-final. Here, she faced badminton supremo Mathilde Deleuran in a tightly contested match. In the bronze medal match Ellie pulled out some excellent tennis, holding her nerve to win 21-12 and win the match by a single point!
Men’s C third place: Rohan Shergill
In the huge 64 draw men’s C event, #14 seed Rohan had a lot of work to do. His badminton shone as the star sport here, losing 15 points over 4 matches. In the semi-final, he faced Frenchman Yves Bret (who had already beaten two other Brits) and although Rohan’s badminton stayed consistent, with a 21-5 win, it was Yves’ tennis which was too good on the day. Rohan beat fellow Brit and junior Raif Fontanelli in an extremely 2-sport-each back and forth, with a scintillating 21-4 tennis win to take the bronze medal +2.
Photo credits: @gerhardnelphotography
UK Racketlon would like to thank all of the organisers for their tireless work to put on such a spectacular tournament once again. The volunteers at the desk, the draw schedulers, the technical work and live streaming, the commentators, the delegates, the bar and kitchen, the venue – all of these people were instrumental in putting together a wonderful tournament, so thank you again.
And finally – to the players, families, supporters – well done! UK Racketlon shows its strength once again, not only through our depth of players, but through our support, friendliness and presence on the world racketlon scene.
Make sure to read the World Team Championships review here, and the FIR round-ups here.
Have a closer look at all the results on Tournament Software here.
UK tournaments that are currently open for entry are here. (Stamford Open, Oxfordshire Open, Edinburgh Open)
As always – happy racketlon-ing!
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