The first Teqball World Series was held in Paris, where matches took place over 3 days in 3 categories (Men's Doubles, Women's Doubles and Mixed Doubles).
178 competitors (124 men and 54 women) from 29 countries came to conquer the gold medals.
Ádám Bakó and Soma Fördős competed together again after a longer absence. They started the competition as seeds, so they did not have to play a group game.
They started their first match against Gergő Dombai - Kristóf Murvai, where they won with a confident game (12-7, 12-3). The pair of Györgydeák Apor - Ilyés Szabolcs, who won a silver medal at the last world championship, followed their next match, which they managed to win with a 2:1 set ratio (12-5, 10-12, 12-9).
The Polish Adrian Duszak - Bartlomiej Franczuk followed to reach the semi-finals. This match was also finished with a 2:1 result (12-10, 5-12, 12-10).
In the semi-finals, one of the strongest couples in the world, if not the strongest, followed. The Serbian duo of Bogdan Marojevic and Nikola Mitro won the first set 12:10 in a fierce fight, then won the second set confidently with a score of 12:6. - Thus, our players could fight for the bronze medal on the main stage against the duo Kovácsfi Barna - Martin Csereklye. The final result is 2:0 (12:8, 12:8). So our boys could return home from Paris with a bronze medal.
Our other men's pair (Mátyás Odnoga - Bence Forgács) started the tournament as seeded in Paris, also without a group match. Their first opponent was the Ukrainian Ivan Grom - Oleh Usychenko, who were defeated 2:0 (12:10, 12:9), so they made it to the top 16, followed by the Polish Adrian Duszak - Bartlomiej Franczuk. In a fierce struggle, the Poles were victorious. 2:0 (12:8, 12:9). This is how the tournament ended for our couple.
In parallel with the men's pair, our girls also introduced themselves at the Teq tables.
The pair Nóra Vicsek - Godó Rebeka, were placed in a group with the Romanian pair Kinga Barabási - Katalin Dakó, the bronze medalists of the last world championship and Maja Umicevic - Dani Peleva. We didn't manage to catch the Romanian couple, but we did the Serbian and Bulgarian duo, so we advanced as second in the group and thus got into the top 16, where we got the Ukrainian couple Iryna Dubytska - Anastasiia Terekh. A confident victory. 12:2, 12:9, which meant that we reached the eighth finals, where the opponent was none other than world number one Margaret Osmundson - Carolyn Greco. The paper format prevailed (12:5, 12:4), but our players left the field proud.
Another of our contestants, Petra Péchy, also took part in the event, where she teamed up with Phoenix Teqball Academy player Zsófia Dezsényi in the Women's Doubles. They confidently won their group against the French, American and Polish-Brazilian pairs, which meant that they found themselves in the top 16, where they saw off the Polish pair Alicja Bartnicka - Agnieszka Rybicka with a score of 2:0 (12:10, 12:3). . In the top 8, the later winner Zsanett Janicsek and Lea Vasas surpassed them. 2:0 (12:4,12:6) Petra also started in mixed doubles with the Phoenix Teqball Academy player Kristóf Murvai, with whom they confidently won their group, but unfortunately they did not make it to the top 16. They lost against the Serbian duo Bogdan Marojevic and Anastasija Lemajic.
The men's and women's doubles were followed by the mixed doubles, where the pair Ádám Bakó - Lea Vasas made a comeback. They didn't have to play a group match as special teams, so they had to say goodbye to Arnold Szilágyi and Kinga Barabási in order to reach the top 16. He managed to bring it confidently. 2:0 (12:3, 12:4) The opponent for reaching the top 8 was the French pair Julien Grondin - Lea Hoffmann. The day before, in men's doubles, Grondin couldn't stand the pressure of the home court, so they had to say goodbye prematurely. Perhaps because of this, he managed to play the match of his life against our pair, where the French won the first set by 12:11, and then the second set was easily won by 12:6, so to our surprise, the competition ended prematurely for our Bakó-Vasas pair.
The duo Nóra Vicsek - Mátyás Odnoga started in this formation for the first time in mixed doubles. As a result, they also had to play a group match, which they played with full confidence against their Romanian, Polish and American opponents. Despite all of this, after the draw, they had to play against the world champion Marcos Vieria - Natalia Guitler, a Brazilian couple, to reach the top 8. It is no exaggeration to say that this battle produced one of the most exciting and beautiful matches of the tournament. To the surprise of the Brazilians, ours were able to win the first set with a score of 12:11, then in the second set the world champion doubles improved to 12:8, so a decisive set followed, which the Brazilians finally managed to win by 12:10 in a very close fight. Unfortunately, our new formation did not advance, but hats off to their performance.
We had another mixed doubles entry, none other than Rebeka Godó and Bence Forgács.
After barely a few months of Teqballing, Rebeka Godó brilliantly made it to the top 16 in Lisbon. The duo set a similar goal, the first step of which was to advance from the group. Although the Polish couple Kaminski-Lezak could not be caught, they managed to force their other two opponents to their knees, so they advanced in second place in the group. In order to succeed in the feat again, he had to surpass Ádám Blázsovics, the world champion in both individual and men's doubles, and his teammate Alexandra Szöllós, but this was not possible. The result is 2:0 (12:6,12:5)
Overall, our competitors successfully concluded the first Teqball World Series and are already preparing for the next competition.
