The first European Teqball Tour (24-26 September) event featured some thrilling doubles action, with Hungary and Serbia coming away with all six medals. The competition marked the start of a new era of teqball events, with FITEQ currently revising its calendar for 2022 and beyond.
Cervia, Italy played host to the inaugural European Tour event, with the continent’s best athletes taking to the beach for doubles and mixed doubles competitions. Europe is the leading continent in terms of medals won at the Teqball World Championships and based on the current World Ranking. Over 50% of the world’s top 20 doubles players competed in Italy last week, where the prize money for the event was $30,000 - the third highest in teqball’s history for a single event (behind the past two World Championships).
Doubles World Number 1 Csaba Banyik and #2 Adam Blazsovics, who are the reigning world champions, were strong favourites heading into the event. The Hungarian pair showed exactly why this was case by reaching the final without dropping a set. However, Serbia’s Nikola Mitro and Bogdan Marojevic achieved the same feat to set up an enthralling final showdown. Banyik and Blazsovics took a first set lead, but their Serbian rivals responded in emphatic fashion to take the second and third set and head home with the title. Hungary’s Adam Bako and Soma Fordos took bronze after a tightly-fought contest against Poland’s Adrian Duszak and Bartlomiej Franczuk.
In the mixed doubles final, Mitro and Banyik faced off once again, this time with the Hungarian securing the victory. Banyik and his partner Zsanett Janicsek defeated Mitro and Maja Umicevic 2-0 (12-5, 12-10) in what was a highly impressive performance. An all-Hungarian third place match saw Balazs Katz and Gabriella Kota overcome Bence Forgacs and Timea Kapusi 2-0 (12-4, 12-10).
Following the success of the European Tour opener, FITEQ will look to finalise its new portfolio. The ambition of the new competition structure is to bring increased prize money and greater global interest to the sport’s elite level events.
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