The YONEX Latvia International 2022 will be held in Jelgava from 1 to 4 September, and all matches will be streamed on www.badmintoneurope.tv.
Held since the 2005, the YONEX Latvia International is back for yet another edition. This year, it will be taking place for the seventh time in Jelgava, a city in central Latvia. The Future Series tournament will be receiving, as always, players not only from different parts of Europe, but also from all over the world.
With 219 players from 35 different countries, there will be plenty of action to follow in these four days. Fans will be able to watch all matches on
www.badmintoneurope.tv. The YONEX Latvia International 2022 will have a mix of previous winners or contenders to the title, and many European young talents in the five different categories.
Men’s singles
Estonia’s Raul Must is back. His last international performance was in no other than the Tokyo Olympics, and he will be competing in Latvia as the top seed. The Estonian player already won the tournament in 2014, and it will be exciting to see how he performs this time.
The BEC Centre of Excellence will have its representation, as Swedish player Shaun Ekengren will also be competing from Friday. Joonas Korhonen, Finland, who last year reached the quarterfinals where he lost to the recently crowned European Junior champion Alex Lanier, will also be competing to make it to the podium this time. Another Finnish player, Ilka Heino, will be playing in the main draw.
Women’s singles
As the top seeded, the women’s singles category has Polish player Wiktoria Dabczynska, whose most recent achievement is having reached the semifinals in the Peru International 2021. Could this be her chance to get her best result of the year?
The unseeded Ramona Üprus, an Estonian young talent, Katrin Neudolt, the first deaf athlete to compete at the non-disabled European Championships, Anna Kupca, who recently competed at the 2022 European Junior Championships and is the reigning national champion in Latvia, Vilte Paulauskaite, the YONEX Latvia U17 champion in two events and EYOF Banská Bystrica bronze medallist, are some other players to watch out for.
Men’s doubles
Last year, Latvia International had Estonia’s Kristjan Kaljurand/ Raul Käsner standing on podium, will we see the top seeded pair repeating their feat this year? There are some tough pairs to beat along the way. They could be potentially facing Jonathan Dolan/ Adam Mcallister, Ireland, and number three seeds Philip Birker/ Phillip Drexler, Austria.
The tournament had an all-Estonian podium in 2020 and there will be quite some Estonian players besides Kaljurand/ Käsner trying to reach the final stages. Rene Leeman/ Raul Must will be one of them.
Women’s doubles
If there is a pair that knows what it feels like to win the Latvia International, that is Estonian duo Kati-Kreet Marran/ Helina Rüütel. Last time they won the title was in 2020, but they won many times before that — they were the champions in 2018 and 2019, as well as in 2013, 2014, and 2015 in the Riga International.
Latvia will have many pairs competing in the main draw. Madara Mackevica/ Anete Priedniece, Liana Lencevica/ Annija Rulle-Titava, and Ieva Pope/ Diana Stognija are just some of the names. Stognija won the bronze partnered with Kristine Sefere back in 2020.
Mixed doubles
In the mixed doubles event, we will have the top seeds Viacheslav Yakovlev/ Polina Tkach, Ukraine, who also competed in the European Championships earlier this year in Madrid, and fourth seeded Oskar Männik/ Ramona Üprus, who were the Latvia International runner-ups in 2020.
Danish duo Emil Lauritzen/ Signe Schulz, who just became the VICTOR Future Series Nouvelle-Aquitaine 2022 champions last weekend, will have as their first opponents Chinese Taipei’s Tsai Fu Cheng/ Wang Pei Yu, who were also playing in the French tournament last week.