FINNISH OPEN – Debut titles in mixed and women’s doubles

Debut titles were had for mixed pair Rasmussen / Grebak and women’s pair Bankier / Nedelcheva at the Finnish Open, while Ouseph and Marin also capitalized on past successes in Vantaa in their respective singles disciplines.

By Thomas Piauley, Badzine correspondent live in Vantaa. Photos: Joonas Puhakka/Badminton Finland (live)

A day of premieres in Vantaa

Sunday was finals day for the Finnish Open 2013, hosted at the Energia Areena of Vantaa, in the suburbs of Helsinki. This year’s International Challenge tournament, part of the Badminton Europe circuit, was marked by a first title for two doubles combinations.

The opening of these two premieres was the victory of Denmark’s Anders Skraarup Rasmussen and Lena Grebak (pictured above) over favorites and 4^th seeded Valeriy Atraschenkov and Anna Kobceva from Ukraine. Despite getting off to a good start by winning the first game, the Ukrainians were well outplayed in the second and third games, when the Danish actually managed to push Valeriy back on the court.

Anders just had to display his hard hits, while Lena was brilliantly pushing the shuttle at the net. While Valeriy and Anna had shown form in reaching the semi-finals last week at the French International, Lena and Anders did not have the ideal preparation for this competition, further enhancing the upset. Indeed, Anders was on holiday last week as well as suffering from food poisoning on the Saturday night.

The second premiere of the day was the expected, but nevertheless valuable win of the ladies in turquoise, Imogen Bankier and Petya Nedelcheva (pictured above right). They were just too strong for their Scandinavian challengers, who were put under pressure by strong attacking phases from Imogen and Petya. The new Scottish-Bulgarian pairing won their first title in Vantaa, and are now aiming to qualify for this year’s World Championships, Petya said after the match.

Experience shows through

The women’s singles was a rematch of the European Junior Championships 2011 final, played in the same arena. Carolina Marin, who was happy to be back in Vantaa, won again in two straight games, thereby putting and end to Beatriz’s streak of two international tournament titles in a row.

Memories of past events in Vantaa were called back in the men’s singles final as well, as Rajiv Ouseph (pictured left), who faced Dmytro Zavadsky, was defending his title from the previous year. Zavadsky, suffering from a sore leg, could not counter Rajiv’s patient game, motivated by the need to “win games as easy as possible”.

Currently 35th, the British player might go up in the world rankings, as his two victories in two weeks will give him no fewer than 8000 points.

Lastly, the men’s doubles final saw an all-Malaysian match, the opposing pairs the only Asian representation for the day. The hierarchy was respected as 2011 World Junior Champions Nelson Heg and Teo Ee Yi (pictured right), seeded 3^rd, won in two straight games and the shortest match of the day. The title makes a nice present for Nelson, who celebrated his 20th birthday on Thursday.

Full results can be found here.