USA Racketlon

USA secures their first gold at the Racketlon World Cup in Austria! Tri Racket Dubs Tourney returns for round 2 with a successful turnout. The Summer Battle of the Rackets was held in Syracuse where some ridiculous pickleball points were scored. Team USA player spotliight, Noel Mathew.

World Cup Success in Austria

Team USA secured their first even medal in the Challenger Cup event and it was golden! Read the feature on Team USA by the International Racketlon Federation here. Some other highlights:

• In her debut, squash coach Joanne Schickerling won 14/15 matches also became the world champion in the Women’s B Singles Division and the Women’s B Doubles Division alongside Stephanie Chung. Look out 2023!
• We had a record number of Americans competing in junior, senior and open categories.
• Katrin is the World Champ in women’s 55+ singles!
• In the final medal table, USA tied powerhouses France and Czech Republic for 7th overall.

For those that want to see all the action in play, watch the highlight below.

Tri Racket Dubs Tourney 2.0 – Waterline Square, NYC

We had another strong showing in NYC for this special event – 24 players battled in October across 3 divisions. Some traveled as far from Northampton, MA, California and Syracuse, NY. There were a few gummiarm tiebreakers and we even had a few
recent division 1 tennis and squash players give it a go!

Congrats to the winners:
D3 was won by the balanced team of Yann and Tiger.
D2 winners and power couple of Shree + Flora earned the gold.
Racketlon newcomers + roommates took down the elite title by combining their Harvard pedigree in squash + tennis, well done to Constanin and Sam!

• Check out the final, Jake Sandler and Tyler Glowaki. 2 5.0 tennis players with ridiculous pickleball skills
• 19 competitors took part in two to three events
• A new tag-team doubles event! 4 teams of 4 tactically threw out line-ups against each other
• A handicap format was used – allowing players to take on athletes across skill levels
• In co-ed B singles, D1 tennis player, Sanjana Sudhir made her debut in a tight draw
• In D men’s singles, 3 of the 4 participants were 1st-timers, local table tennis player, Will Ferguson taking 1st and vet Joe Fratianni making his best result ever at 2nd
• The men’s doubles draw was composed of two A level and two handicapped C-level teams. The C team of Brandon Willis + John Funiciello took down Justin D’Antonio +Alex McCarthy to win the title
• The victors of every event went home with home-made golden trophies, composed of stacked, golden balls (and birdies) from the 4 sports
• The tournament director thanks all the participants of these events as they kept racketlon alive in the US for 2 years as the only events hosted during the worst of Covid-19. Only time will tell where the next racketlon series will pop-up, and
  who will volunteer to run it!

Player Spotlight: Noel Mathew

I grew up as a nomad in India, moving every 3-4
years to new cities. Because of frequent relocations
and general encouragement to focus on studies,
formal sport training was not in the picture.
However, as a 10 year old kid, I remember taking
my wooden badminton racquet, walking to an
outdoor concrete court, and hitting around just for
fun. I also remember playing table tennis with my
brother, on my dining table, using a hardcover
notebook as the paddle, and cassette holders for
the net. Unfortunately, as school pressure
mounted, I stopped playing any sports for the rest
of my school days

When I started college in the south of India, I rediscovered my love for badminton. I played so much just from the sheer joy of it. This commitment allowed me to get into the college badminton team, and even captain it during my senior year. We won third place in the university championship that year. After college, I moved to Bangalore for my first job, where I found my love for lunch hour table tennis. I played a lot casually with my coworkers and had so much fun.

I moved to the US in 2013 for my graduate program, where sports again took a backseat. After finishing my degree, I moved to NY in 2015 for work. In NY, I found meetups that played badminton in the city, and joined them once or twice a week. I dabbled in a couple of local tournaments in the lower divisions, but never got very serious. A few years later, I also found a tennis court next to my place where I tried some tennis with my friends for the first time.

These badminton sessions are also when I met Pat Moran who introduced me to the world of Racketlon.
Sometime after the initial phase of the pandemic, I participated in the NY racketlon league. This is where I met the awesome people in the community and got to watch/play against some amazing players in various sports. The warm welcome I received made me try out
squash in Aug 2021 as a substitute for badminton. I was hooked, and with the encouragement from the racketlon community, especially Pat, I began training in all 4 racketlon sports to improve and hone my skills. I had so much fun, hitting around with experts in different sports, and continuing to see improvement in my own game.

I had a breakthrough moment in late 2021. Rather than relying on pure physical exertion, I felt that I was able to focus more on understanding the different strategies used in the different sports. I still have a lot to learn, but this opened the pathway to figure out how to best play all 4 sports in a way that suits my style and skills. Over the past year, I was able to showcase my hard work, from getting runner up in my first table tennis tournament for the 1450 category at Westchester, to winning my first tennis tournament at the Annual Fort Greene B ladder. When I participated in my first official racketlon tournament, the La Santa Open, I won gold in Men’s C singles category and a bronze in Men’s doubles with Pat.

I couldn’t participate in the World Championships this year, but I’m raring to go next year.

Fun fact: You will always see me carrying around a deck of cards. I am an amateur cardist (someone involved in
cardistry, which is the art of card juggling)