Hi, These are some photo and memories from Racketlon Challege 2009, let cheer up for the past event and hope the Racketlon Challege 2010 will be launched successfully, BRAVO!!!
Here are some VIP and star player who had attended last year! Guest of honour:
Dato Ramlan (General Director of National Sports Institute Malaysia)
Star Players: Ong Beng Hee(Squash World top 15,Malaysia No.1)
Alan Pete Sauza(National Squash Coach)
Muhd Asyraf Azan (Squash Player,Malaysia rank. 4) Siti Munirah Jusof (Squash Player,Malaysia rank. 6)
Nabilla Ariffin (Squash Player,Malaysia rank .7)
Kenneth Low(Former Malaysia Squash Open Champion)
Qi Quen Chai (Table Tennis Player,MAPCU Table Tennis champion
Beh Lee Wei(Table Tennis Player, Malaysia rank. 1)
The origins of Racketlon can be traced back to Scandinavia in the mid '80s, where four people representing each of the four racket Federations got together in Finland to form a game they called Mailapelit - i.e. "Racket Games". The first Finnish Championships were held in Helsinki in 1986 and the sport rapidly grew and slowly changed to the Racketlon format.
In Sweden, Racketlon can be traced back to, at least the end of the '80s. In May 1989 the "Mr Racketlon" of Sweden and twice National Champion, Peter Landberg, organized the first competition. The following year, in 1990, the first Swedish Championships took place and attracted more than 200 players.During the first couple of years, the name "Racketlon" was not yet invented.
Instead, "Racket Championship” was used. Also, the rules were different. For some time in the beginning, the ambition was to keep the characteristic rules of counting in each of the sports. E.g. Tennis set was played to 6 games,the badminton set to 15 points, where only the server can get a point and so forth. This method of counting, however, required some fairly complicated mathematics involving conversion tables. After a tight match, often it was not clear to the players who had actually won until the mathematics had beendone.
Then, in 1994, the present rules of counting were introduced, thanks to an unexpected discovery.It was found out that a similar game, Mailapelit, was played in Finland. The Finnish game contained the same sports but the counting was different and much simpler - "Each set to 21 points - most points is the winner". These rules were straightforwardly imported and the 1994 Swedish Racketlon Championships were using the Finnish counting, which has been the case ever since.
As already mentioned, Racketlon also emerged in Finland under the name of Mailapelit(i.e. "Racket Games"). Interestingly, the Swedish and Finnish developments seem to have occurred independently at around the same time. It was only after several years of activity that the movements got to know about each other with the result mentioned above that the Finnish rules were adopted by the Swedes. Various indications show that activities similar to Racketlon are going on in many places of theworld.
In Germany, for example "Schlägerturniere" (Eng. racket tournaments) involving 3, 4 or even 5 rackets seem quite common. (The fifth Schläger being a golf club...) In England there are vague traces of something called Quintathlon covering squash, tennis, rackets, real court tennis and (again!) golf.
A significant step towards the Internationalization of Racketlon was taken in the autumn of 2001 when the first ever International Racketlon tournament took place. Gothenburg Racketlon World Openwas played from the 2nd-4th of November, 2001. This was when the Finnish and Swedish Racketlon elites first faced each other and the result was no less than a shock to the somewhat conceited Swedish Racketlon community. The Finns won both the Prestigious Men's and Ladies' Elite Classes and a final victory in the Men's Veteran class made it painfully obvious to the Swedes that they had been the victims of a clean sweep and totally unexpected too.
Players from six different countries took part. Apart from Finland and Sweden, Scotland, France,Germany and Bulgaria were represented. Since then, one milestone after another have been reached,The first international Racketlon tournament in Finland was played in May 2002 and in the same year, the first Racketlon tournament outside Scandinavia took place in Scotland in mid August. At the second World Championships in Gothenburg 2002, a National Team Competition was played for the first time.
The premiere of the World Tour was in 2003.The International Racketlon Federation (IRF) was founded on 15th September 2002. Official languages are French, English and German and the acronym later changed to French FIR - Federation Internationale de Racketlon. The first FIR COUNCIL was elected in October 2005 at a General Meetingduring English Open in London.
Definition of Racketlon The following 3 principles need to be fulfilled in order for a sport to qualify for the term Racketlon:
a) The game must include the following four sports: table tennis, badminton, squash and tennis.
b) The game must be built on the concept of a Racketlon match involving the same two individuals playing each other in all four sports - with identically formatted sets being played in each sport. c) Each rallymust count. The player who wins most rallies in total is the winner of the Racketlon
match.
Any sport that fulfills the 3 principles above is Racketlon. Any other sport involving the combination of
several racket sports might be termed "multi racket sport" - but is not Racketlon.
(Singles Rules)
Set Order: From smaller to larger rackets. The four sets shall be played in the following order:
table tennis, badminton, squash, tennis
Scoring: a) Running score to 21. Margin of two points.
Every rally results in a point to the winner of the rally - i.e. "running score" is applied - and the winner of each set is the player who first reaches 21 points.
b) Total points count.
The winner of a Racketlon match is not the one that wins most sets but the one that scores the most points in total. This means that it is possible to lose three out of the four sets and still win the match.
c) Early interruption.
If any of the players so wishes the match shall be stopped as soon as (a) the winner has enough points for the match to be decided - AND (b) the rest of the points have no other significance. (Note that group play is sometimes decided through counting total points difference. In that case (b) might apply and the rest of the points might still have significance for the result of the group, in which case each match shall be played to the end.).
d) Tiebreak.
If, after all 4 sets, both players have exactly the same number of points the Gummiarm Tiebreak applies, see below.
Serving & Ends of Court:
a) The toss.
The initial order of serving, receiving and ends in each of the four sets shall be decided by one single toss before the match starts, according to the following procedure:
The winner of the toss decides whether to start serving or receiving in table tennis. The player, who starts serving in table tennis, starts receiving in badminton, starts serving in squash and starts receiving in tennis.
In each set (except in squash, of course) the player who starts receiving decides what end to start the set from.
b) Two serves each.
After every two points the serve goes to the other player. At the first of these two serves the server always serves from the right (except in table tennis, of course). The second serve is from the left side.
c) Switch at 11.
Ends are switched at the time when 11 points are first reached by any of the players.
d) One serve each after 20-20.
After 20-20 the serve switches hand after every point until the set is decided.
The two first serves are from the right, the two next serves are from the left and so on.
e) Second serve in tennis.
In the tennis set, the server has two chances - first and second service - just as in normal tennis. This is not, however, valid at Gummiarm Tiebreak, see below.
