The 2020 German Tour season was very welcoming to international teams as it concluded its calendar this weekend with the sixth victory of foreign players with Polish stars Piotr Kantor and Bartosz Losiak topping the podium in Hamburg.
With their victory, all of the six events leading to the German Championships, which will happen from September 3-6, had at least one international player at the top of the podium. Kantor and Losiak’s victory this weekend in Hamburg followed triumphs of the Dutch-German duos of Steven van de Velde/Lukas Pfretzschner and Alexander Brouwer/Julius Thole a few weeks ago in Düsseldorf.
Among the women, Swiss players were the ones to dominate the scene with Joana Heidrich and Anouk Vergé-Dépré winning the opening event in Düsseldorf and blocker Tanja Hüberli taking the honors on the other two – the first with German Isabel Schneider and the second with her World Tour partner Nina Betschart.
Kantor and Losiak arrived in Hamburg fresh from having won an event of the Polish Tour last weekend and they just kept things rolling to secure another title with a 21-19, 22-20 victory over the Poniewaz twins Bennet and David. Home favorites Julius Thole and Clemens Wickler, who were eliminated by the Polish in the semifinals, and another set of twins, Italians Matteo and Paolo Ingrosso, tied for third place.
“We are very happy that we won the tournament here in Hamburg,” Kantor said. “The level was very high and the final we needed to give all we had to get the victory.”
The Polish won an international medal in Hamburg in 2018, when they finished third at the World Tour Finals.
The weekend also determined the last teams qualified to the German Championships. After finishing in the top two spots at the “Road to Timmendorf tournament”, the duos of Leo Hauschild/Max Karpa and Moritz Klein/Rudy Schneider will have a chance to compete at the National Championships.
World champions win another one on Russian Tour
Also celebrating back-to-back titles this weekend were the reigning world champions Oleg Stoyanovskiy and Viacheslav Krasilnikov, who prevailed at the Russian Tour event in Obinsk. Rising stars Mariia Bocharova and Maria Voronina triumphed among the women.
Stoyanovskiy and Krasilnikov, the winners of last weekend’s tournament in Kazan, met national rivals Konstantin Semenov and Ilya Leshukov in the final again and, as they had done seven days ago, secured the title with a straight-set (21-19, 21-17). Nikita Liamin and Taras Myskiv finished third in the tournament.
The women’s event saw the young Bocharova, 18, and Voronina, 20, navigate well the country’s top teams. The Youth Olympic and Junior world champions upset Russia’s top team of Nadezda Makroguzova and Svetlana Kholomina in three sets (17-21, 21-18, 15-9) to claim the title. Two-time Olympians Ekaterina Birlova and Evgeniya Ukolova got bronze.
The Russian national calendar continues with the Russian Cup from September 2-6, in Anapa.
