Finals day proved to be a golden day for French singles players with both Thomas Rouxel and Delphine Lansac winning titles in Warsaw. For Rouxel (pictured) the victory has been particularly sweet after a tough 4 months with injury while Lansac’s win virtually cements her seat on the plane to Rio in the summer.
Thomas Rouxel came into the tournament with no pressure. Rouxel is not one of the players chasing points for the race to Rio. The Always smiling Frenchman has had a tough few months with injury and to play well and enjoy the games was his main focus this week in Warsaw.
In today’s final Rouxel beat Finland’s Eetu Heino. The Finn is edging ever closer to Ville Lang for an appearance in Rio this summer and another haul of points will have Lang now looking over his shoulder.
“I am really happy to win here today” said Rouxel to Badminton Europe. “It has been a very complicated period after the worlds in Indonesia. I had stomach issues for almost four months so now I just play it game by game and enjoy being 100% fit again. This is my first title on the Badminton Europe circuit so I will remember this one forever”
Lansac herself showed great form in the semi-final beating number two seed Olga Konon of Germany after Konon had taken down world junior champion Jin Wei GOH in the quarter final, something that no European had done this season on the circuit.
The French number 1 blew Neslihan Yigit of Turkey off the court in today’s final. After an edgy opening game Lansac took the title in two with a 21-11 win in the second. With the win comes 4000 world ranking points as a down payment on a ticket to Rio in the summer. Something that 12 months ago Lansac could have only dreamed about.
Mateusiak & Zieba deliver yet again with 8th title in 9 months
It goes without saying that when Robert Mateusiak and Nadia Zieba enter a tournament these days they tend to be one of the big favourites to win. 9 months ago the Poles had no ranking and were slogging it out in qualification at the start of their comeback.
Jump forward 9 months and the Polish veterans landed their 8th international title in those nine months and now look ahead to going out with a bang in Rio in the summer. As has become the norm the Poles lifted their home title without dropping a set and today’s victims were TAN/LAI of Malaysia.
Both the men’s and women’s doubles final were all Asian matchups with Indonesia coming out on top in the men’s thanks to Hardianto & Haryanto while Thailand swept the women’s doubles title thanks to top seeds Supajirakul and Taerattanachai.
For all results from the 2016 Polish Open click
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Article and image by Mark Phelan for Badminton Europe, podium photo by Paweł Pietranik, Poland.