European Club and Team Championship: 2012

Club European Championship: In the same group with the owners of the courts

The European Club Championship starts on September 6 in Prague. The Petroholding Squash Club team will start fighting in Group D. Despite the good final results shown by the Petroholding Squash Club at the two previous continental championships, the Ukrainian seeding team was again in the bottom half of the list. However, even being seeded 13th, Petroholding's four managed to get into one of the most even groups of the championship. Scottish “Aberdeen”, Czech “Buldochi” and Swedish “Roslagen” will fight together with us for the right to enter the playoffs. The colors of the reigning club championship bronze medalist, Aberdeen, will be defending five players this year - Daryl Selby, Alan Cline, Simon Park, Elistair Gorrie and Chris Shinnie. Without a doubt, the most dangerous of them are the first two - Selby is ranked eleventh in the PSA rating, and Kline is 28th. We have few chances against such experienced squash players, but even if we lose in games against them, we can still count on an acceptable result in the form of a final draw - the rest of the Scottish club players are quite capable. It should be noted that the bronze medal of the 2011 championship was won by almost the same squad - except that Mike Black played for Aberdeen instead of Chris Shinney. But in 2010, the Scottish club was only eighth, having lost the match for seventh place to Petroholding. True, then it did not include Selby and Kline. Roslagen, on the contrary, became the fifth two years ago, and a year later it was replaced by Intersquash at the club championship. If we talk about the composition of the Swedes, then the first racket of this club is Romain Tennant, not seen in the PSA rating. Together with him, Karl-Johan Lofvenborg, Mathias Kallio, Viktor Stenstrom and Jonas Axelsson will oppose the rivals - these names say almost nothing to the Ukrainian squash lover. The more dangerous will be meetings with players unfamiliar to our squash players.

And the most dangerous will be the meeting with the owners of the court - the Czech "Buldochi". This year, the Czechs, making their debut in tournaments of this kind, for the sake of success, attracted such giants of the world squash as Gregory Goltier and Jan Kukal to play for their club. The Frenchman is now confidently on the third line of the PSA rating, the Czech is in the Top 50. It makes sense to be wary of the third racket of Ondřej Ertl's team - 176th place in the world ranking. The rest of Buldochi's representatives can and should be fought - these are Peter Martin, Tim David Vile and Stefan Kastelein. Taking into account the fact that only four squash players are included in the application for the game, and the group stage is just time for disperse, it is unlikely that the Czechs will use both of their leaders in the meeting against Petroholding. Unless only the ground under your feet will burn. Therefore, we also have chances against this club. It is worth noting that the level of opponents has increased significantly compared to the championships of previous years. For example, for the French "Mulhouse" will play the leader of the world rating James Willstrop, together with Mark Krajczak and Joan Lezo. Another Czech club from Strahov invited Australian Cameron Pilli to join its team. We will also see Nick Matthew on the Prague courts - he will play for the German Worms, which is burning with a thirst for revenge for the defeat in the final from the German Paderborn. The reigning champions retained their winning roster, except that Peter Nichol was replaced by Peter Barker (PSA # 7) and Chris Simpson (# 45). In general, after the group stage, the struggle will unfold in earnest, because each of the clubs has its own trump cards in its sleeves. Now directly about the Petroholding Squash Club. In 2010, our top three players Ruslan Sorochinsky, Konstantin Rybalchenko and Denis Podvorny were supplemented as the first racket by their coach Hadrian Stiff, and in 2011 he was replaced by Frenchman Luc Serme. Now we have another lineup change. The second number of Petroholding Squash Club will be performed by local squash farmer Ondřej Uherka. This player is 20 years old. Although he is not listed in the PSA rating, he constantly plays at high-level tournaments. At the individual European Championship, Ugerka was eliminated in the first round, but lost not to someone, but to Olli Tuominen himself, and showed a pretty good game - none of the games was easy for the Finn. In the future, the Czech only won, and after the Russian Alexei Severinov, it was the turn of our Konstantin Rybalchenko, who fell from the accurate punches of Ugerka after the third game. He was stopped only by Piedro Schweertman in the match for 17th place. At the European Team Championship, Ugerka entered the fight only after the Czech national team reached the playoffs. In the quarterfinals, he lost four games to the future champion of the tournament, Carlos Ribadas, and the next time he entered the courts in the match for fifth place against Jordan Davis from Wales. His victory over an opponent in three games helped the Czechs confidently finish the championship in fifth place in the team event. Considering that Rybalchenko, Sorochinsky and Podvorny are now in excellent physical shape, then our team has pretty good prospects. At least we are quite capable of leaving the group. And then it will already be seen, based on which of the rivals we will come across in the first round of the playoffs.

European Squash Club Championships (Prague, Czech Republic)

Group stage

Group A

Black & White Racket Club Worms (Germany, 1) Nottingham SC (England, 8) Espoo SRC (Finland, 9) Liechtenstein I (Liechtenstein, 16)

Group B Paderborn Squash Club (Germany, 2) Volksbank Squash Union Wr.Neudorf-M? Dling (Austria, 7) Fitzwilliam LTC, Dublin (Ireland, 10) Norwegian Hafrsfjord Team (Norway, 15)

Group С Mulhouse Squash Club (France, 3) Squashclub Strahov (Czech Republic, 6) Recrean (Belgium, 11) 1st Slovak Squash Club Bratislava (Slovakia, 14)

Group D Aberdeen (Scotland, 4) Buldoci Praha (Czech Republic, 5) Roslagen SRC (Sweden, 12)

Petroholding Squash Club (Ukraine, 13)

Club European Championship: We coped with the task

The four of Petroholding Squash Club managed to adequately represent Ukrainian squash on the continental arena. Yes, our squash players finished the European Club Championship only in eleventh position. Yes, there were lost matches. But just look how and against whom our guys fought! This year the club championship really turned out to be one of the strongest - in contrast to the previous championships. Already at the group stage, the Ukrainians had to fight against such world squash stars as Gregory Goltier and David Palmer. To the credit of our players, even after suffering two defeats in a row, they did not forget about the task set before them. The next day, the Swedish “Roslagen” was carried out with their feet forward, taking third place in Group D. Well, in the playoffs they really began to fight to the last. First, on the winning wave, they destroyed rivals from Slovakia, gaining the right to fight for 9-12 places. Then we came across the Finns led by Matias Tuomi. We lost to them, but we beat our opponents' nerves a lot - judge by the score of each of the games! And then we were able to cope with the Irish "Fitzwilliam" ... Until the Top-10 we lacked one single step - but the rivals this year were outstanding. Such hardening is worth a lot. And here it is already possible to assert with confidence - the next, 2013, will be ours. And don't doubt it!

European Squash Club Championships (Prague, Czech Republic)

Group D Petroholding (Ukraine) - Roslagen (Sweden) - 3: 1 (9: 4)

Ruslan Sorochinsky - Romain Tenant - 0: 3 (10:12, 12:14, 5:11)

Denis Podvorny - Jonas Axelsson - 3: 0 (11: 3, 11: 3, 11: 7)

Ondrej Ugerka - Karl-Johan Lofvenborg - 3: 1 (11: 4, 11: 7, 9:11, 11: 7)

Konstantin Rybalchenko - Matias Kalio - 3: 0 (11: 7, 11: 9, 11: 6)

Another match

Worms (Germany) - Buldochi (Czech Republic) - 4: 0 (12: 3)

Matches for 9-16 places

Petroholding (Ukraine) - Bratislava (Slovakia) - 4: 0 (12: 4)

Ruslan Sorochinsky - Marek Manik - 3: 2 (10:12, 11: 9, 11: 5, 9:11, 11: 1)

Denis Podvorny - Peter Gruzik - 3: 0 (11: 2, 11: 4, 11: 2)