Racketlon World Championships in Graz: One point decides: Austria loses the final against Germany 141:142
Austria had to submit their number one Emanuel Schöpf, the Bludenzer had suffered a circulatory collapse in his single and had to pass after two successful appearances in the round of 16 and quarterfinals for the final against Germany. Austria went into the race for the fourth World Cup gold for red-white with Florian Harca (men’s singles 1), Bettina Bugl (women’s singles), Marcel Weigl/Lukas Windischberger (doubles) and Georg Stoisser (men’s singles 2). -red after 2010, 2012 and 2018. Germany fielded a strong squad with Max Plettenberg, Nathalie Vogel, Cornelius Radermacher/Thorsten Lentfer and Christian Wiessner. Team Germany was unseeded in the FIR World Cup and therefore had to play one more round than Austria. Since the German athletes on the FIR World Tour have not been very active in recent years due to corona, the world rankings did not reflect the level of play. After the loss of world number seven Emanuel Schöpf, Austria was in the outsider role.
Harca disappointed with tennis set
The hopes rested on the new number one Florian Harca, who went against Plettenberg after 3:11 in table tennis, 11:3 in badminton, 3:11 in squash as the favorite in the tennis set. But the German got on the nerves of the Austrian youth ace (U21 Vice World Champion in Vienna) with his defensive play. An 11:9 in tennis ultimately looks out. “I’m very disappointed with my tennis set. I can’t give away so many points against Max,” said the dejected Viennese, who seemed to be particularly suffering from his defeat in the after-match interview. Bettina Bugl kept up well against the former individual world champion Nathalie Vogel and lost 30:41 after four sets. The doubles went to Weigl/Windischberger with 42:35 and so the last tennis singles between Georg Stoisser and Christian Wiessner had to bring the decision. The German had shown nerves of steel in the semifinals when he was able to turn a 0:9 deficit in tennis against world number four Kresten Hougaard into a win against Denmark – thanks to a rubber arm. A two-point lead was not enough for Austria’s number two – at 8:11 Wiessner converted the match point just before one o’clock in the morning and thus secured Germany the World Championship title in the FIR World Cup.