World Champion Lazarus puts on Xmas Racketlon Show
42 players, 5 matches per player, 11 points, 4 sports, what a speech........Dave explains racketlon in a nutshell "so if I played you and you won the badminton and I won the tennis and you won the squash I need 4 points in table tennis, handshake, job done, know what I'm saying........". A low factor ranking point allocation will be awarded to this event.
Jokes aside it was a great event enjoyed by all. The crowning glory for Redbridge is also the news that a new badminton hall is open with 12 brand new courts and a purpose built table tennis centre which Local SuperClub Mossford have moved into meaning squash now has the lowest number of courts with 7. Table tennis capacity is now around 20 tables, 17 badminton, 7 squash and 13 tennis (including outdoors) so this is now some venue.
Keith Lesser beat Phil Todd in the final of the 32 player Class A category in a strong final - 11-2, 11-5, 5-11, 11-13 +7. Phil is a very solid player, with particularly strong squash.
Class B was won by Ian Sawtell and runner up was Steph Stylianou. Our own Dominique Ford also managed a decent 4th place.
Full results below.
Robbie Wong could not repeat last year's victory and gained a credible 3rd place. Nigel D'Arcy upset the seedings by knocking out not only 8th seed Andrew Yates but also 2nd seed Oliver Oxland. Oliver recovered for a 5th place finish with excellent victories over squash specialists Chris Hobbs and Martin Szwaba. Darren Vickery looked like he was suffering from too much Xmas cheer.
John Dennison in his debut achieved an excellent 4 wins (only losing to Todd) and finishing 9th is no mean feat as the highest finish for a new rackathlete. If John improves squash slightly, he is dangerous and we also look forward to Topspin TT co partner and racketlon sponsor Tom Cutler making a similar appearance...!
Elise Lazarus continues her improvement and somehow..! managed to beat Stephen Lesser to finish 25th, even winning at table tennis, but not at badminton...Mike Hoare also performed well, losing only to Robbie Wong and the match for 17th place to Neil Spencer.
Steve Dow (12th) had Keith Lesser on the rocks in round 2. After a 11-7 victory in badminton and an 11-6 win in tennis, squash and table tennis remained and Steve had a 9 point lead. Table tennis reversed the fortunes with an 11-3 win for Keith, leaving a winner takes all outcome for squash, which Keith took 11-4.
Very enjoyable event, well done to all.
| Keith Lesser | 1st |
| Phil Todd | 2nd |
| Robbie Wong | 3rd |
| Nigel D'Arcy | 4th |
| Oliver Oxland | 5th |
| Chris Hobbs | 6th |
| Martin Szwaba | 7th |
| Darren Vickery | 8th |
| John Dennison | 9th |
| Perry Fung | 10th |
| Andrew Yates | 11th |
| Steve Dow | 12th |
| Anil Sharma | 13th |
| Russell Fairman | 14th |
| Paul Goodhew | 15th |
| Charlie Conlan | 16th |
| Neil Spencer | 17th |
| Mike Hoare | 18th |
| Melvyn Lee | 19th |
| Roman Szwaba | 20th |
| Fraser Linning | 21st |
| Rhys Mead | 22nd |
| Preshan Clare | 23rd |
| Peter Caton | 24th |
| Elise Lazarus | 25th |
| Stephen Lesser | 26th |
| George Goodhew | 27th |
| Brad Smith | 28th |
| Shuse Zhang | 29th |
| Neil Palmer | 30th |
| Mick Weston | 31st |
| Jamal Dennison | 32nd |