Unfortunately, no Swiss team could win a medal in Vienna at the Racketlon World Teams Championships 2017 but what strength and team-spirit they showed to fight against relegation!

In the Champions Division, Switzerland 1 (3rd of group B) and the Czech Republic (4th of group A) had to play the final deciding match. The winner would be safe, the loser faced a final match to decide its fate. With both teams incredibly evenly matched, each sport produced rubbers with only a couple of points between each player, Benjamin Hampl and Patrik Zak finishing with a 19-17 tennis rubber. Other extreme examples were Nicole Eisler who beat Zuzana Severinova by only 1 point and the doubles heroes Raphael Paglia and Christian Schäfer also winning by just 1 point. Ultimately, the entire match came down to a game of tennis between Patrick Lorenz and Marek Hruza, with 1 point separating the teams before they began. Patrick held his nerve and an 11-4 win handed Switzerland a 6-point victory in the whole match.

Switzerland 2 stood together in a thrilling last match against Austria 2. Congratulations to Adeline Kilchenmann, Esther Dübendorfer, Beat Ladner, Daniel Batinic, Marcel Fässler and Oliver Bühler for their effort to stay in the 1st division.

Switzerland 3 (with Dara Ladner, (injured) Tanja Omlin, Moreno Zulian, Patrick Bürgi, Philipp Dätwyler and Simon Zurschmiede) and Switzerland +45 (with Susan Rutschmann, Adi Waldis, Arno Graf, Graham King, Marc-André Rauber, Markus Furter and JD Andrey) won some individual matches to say it a nice way ;-)

Thank you all for the great team-spirit and also thanks to Aleksandra Milicevic (the team physio) for her help to get all the players quickly recovered after all these hard matches!

 

Switzerland 1

(back from left to right: Patrick Lorenz, Christian Schäfer, Raphael Paglia; front from left to right: Nicole Eisler, Benjamin Hampl)

 

Switzerland 2

(from left to right: Esther Dübendorfer, Danijel Batinic, Adeline Kilchenmann, Oliver Bühler, Beat Ladner)

 

Switzerland 3

(from left to right: Simon Zurschmiede, Moreno Zulian, Patrick Bürgi, Dara Ladner, Philipp Dätwyler)

Missing: Tanja Omlin (injured)

 

Switzerland +45

(from left to right: Graham King, Adrian Waldis, Susan Rutschmann, Markus Furter, marc-André Rauber, Arno Graf, JD Andrey)

 

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Team Switzerland is back from the Racketlon World Teams and Doubles Championships 2016! The 22 players from 5 teams (elite, amateur, juniors U16 and U21 and seniors +45) had a lot of fun in Birkerød/Copenhagen! 

Most successful and vice world champions:

Team Switzerland U16 with Yannic Andrey, Leonard Ladner and Fabian Meierhans (unfortunately no picture)

 

The elite team managed to stay in the group of the top 8 nations in the world!

(Patrick Lorenz, Raphael Paglia, Benjamin Hampl, Michael Strässle and Nicole Eisler)

 

(Seniors +45: JD Andrey, Graham King, Esther Dübendorfer, Marc-André Rauber, Beat Ladner)

 

Check out the following films of the amazing Swiss atmosphere:

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3&4

 

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Team European Championships in Prague 2015

The first two days saw the team competition. Unfortunately, the first snow arrived exactly on Wednesday morning and delayed the flights of some much needed team members. This lead to a few bitter losses as the matches could not be rescheduled because of a very tight time table. After intense negotiation with a FIR delegate, the elite team’s match got postponed for one hour. But even one hour later Nicole Eisler was still missing and the match had to start. Like a miracle, Nicole appeared about 10 seconds before she was due to play. Still a little bit shaken by these events, the team had trouble finding their game against the already favoured Germans and proceeded to lose their match. Remembering their team spirit, they then produced one of the highlights of the tournament in their next match. Christian Schäfer was able to save 8 match points (all of them with serve and volley) in tennis against a tough Dutch opponent and then converted his first match point to a win. The amateur team got hit even worse as they were missing not only one, but three players and had to forfeit their first match. In much better spirits (and better prepared) was the U16 team. Despite losing some nail-biters against the heavily favoured teams from Great Britain and Finland, they fought their way to 3rd place in the tournament. The U21 and O45 teams felt the fierce international competition and had to congratulate their opponents more often than not.

 

 (Team Elite von links: Nicole Eisler, Raphael Paglia, André Bandi, Christian Schäfer, Benjamin Hampl)

(Team II von links: Patick Lorenz, Tim Bulaty, Jeremy Schmid, Danijel Batinic, Simon Engler, Stephanie Caviezel)

(Team +45 von links: Beat Ladner, Markus Furter, Susan Rutschmann, Graham King, Marc-André Rauber und Team Tschechien)

(Team U21 von links: Riccardo Krinner, Michael Strässle, Dara Ladner)

(Team U16 von links: Yannic Andrey, Tinko Schnegg, (Dara Ladner,) Leonard Ladner, (Patrick Lorenz)) 

 

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Swiss surprise with elite semi final! – So stand es 2014 auf der FIR Homepage geschrieben! Nur wenige hätten ihr Geld wohl auf die Schweiz als Team WM Halbfinalist gesetzt! Im polnischen Preslau überraschten Nicole Eisler, Christian Schäfer, Lukas Spring, Benjamin Hampl, André Bandi und Raphael Paglia die Racketlonwelt mit ihrem Sieg in den Viertelfinals gegen England. Aber bereits in der ersten Runde gegen Ungarn überzeugten sie mit einer soliden Teamleistung und einem Resultat von +17.

 (Team Elite von links: Benjamin Hampl, André Bandi, Christian Schäfer, Nicole Eisler, Raphael Paglia, Lukas Spring)

Zum 1. Mal hatte die Schweiz auch ein Junioren U21 Team und ein Senioren +45 Team am Start! Die Jungen machten es der Elite nach und wurden ebenfalls 4. Die Senioren beendeten das Turnier auf dem 9. Schlussrang.

 

(Team +45 von links: Graham King, Susan Rutschmann, Peter Lindstrom, Beat Ladner, Marc-André Rauber)

 

(Team U21 von links: Michael Strässle, Riccardo Krinner, Dara Ladner)

 

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Für die Nationalmannschaft im vergangenen Jahr 2013 gingen vom 11.7. – 14.7. in Alphen an den Rijn, Holland, gingen folgende SpielerInnen an den Start:

(von links: Lukas Spring, Nicole Eisler, Christian Schäfer, Suat Ulusoy und Thomas Wagner)

Fazit:

Im prestigeträchtigen Spiel um Platz 9 (mal wieder!) gegen die Gastgeber kam es am Schluss beim Stand von 131:131 zum alles entscheidenden Punkt! Zum Glück spielte Tennisspezialist Christian Schäfer als Herren Einzel 2 auf der Gummiarmposition. Konzentriert wie Willhelm Tell servierte er sicher und mit viel Drall ...  und griff an und machte den Punkt! Ein neuer Nationalheld war geboren! Aber jedes Teammitglied trug genau seine wichtigen Punkte zu diesem Sieg bei:

Lukas Spring als Herren Einzel 1: Lautstark auf dem Platz!

Nicole Eisler als Damen Einzel: Starke Aufholjagd im Badminton!

Thomas Wegmann und Suat Ulusoy: Wulusoy im Herren Doppel – eine starke Kombination!

...nur beim Singen der Nationalhymne waren die Holländer um einiges stärker! :-)

 

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An der Team-Weltmeisterschaft vom 12. - 15. Juli 2012 in Sofia, Bulgarien, wurde die Schweiz durch folgende SpielerInnen vertreten:

• Nicole Eisler (CH Nr. 1)
• Thomas Wegmann (CH Nr. 2)
• Lukas Spring (CH Nr. 4)
• Suat Ulusoy (CH Nr. 6)
• Claude Näscher (CH Nr. 7)
• Graham King (CH Nr. 8)

(Eisler, King, Näscher, Wegmann, Spring, Ulusoy)

Das Team belegte den guten 9. Schlussrang, was soviel wie "Best Looser" bedeutete. Nach einer knappen Niederlage gegen England gewann die Nationalmannschaft noch die Partien gegen Bulgarien und Rumänien.

Für die Selektion war das Ranking per 1. 1. 2012 massgebend. 

 

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Nationalmannschaft bei der Team-Weltmeisterschaft 2011 in Mailand, Italien:

• Nicole Eisler
• Michael Wagner
• Graham King
• Thomas Wegmann
• Suat Ulusoy

 

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Nationalmannschaft bei der Team-Weltmeisterschaft 2010 in Wiener Neudorf, Österreich:

von links: Graham King, Renato Putelli, Nicole Eisler, Nico Hobi, Valentin Infanger

 

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Nationalmannschaft bei der Team-Weltmeisterschaft 2009 in Löhne, Deutschland:

Vor dem 1. Rundenspiel gegen Polen:

hintere Reihe von links: Michael Wagner, Christian Schäfer, Lorenz Arnet, Nicole Eisler

vordere Reihe von links: Philipp Häfliger, Valentin Infanger

 

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Elite Nationalmannschaft und B-Team bei der 1. Team-Weltmeisterschaft für die Schweiz 2008 in Fürth, Deutschland:

hintere Reihe von links: Conrad Hückstädt, Valentin Infanger, Dany Greter, Migi Frass, Michael Wagner

vordere Reihe von links: Pia Bürgin, Kilian Rotzler, Philipp Häfliger, Nicole Eisler