Finnish National Championships 2015

[Pongfinity]

Hey guys,

Hopefully we will see here on TTD updates from each countries' national championships this weekend. Will be interesting to see who takes the titles! I thought I would add in Finnish champs in this thread.

The Finnish Champs will be played in Helsinki this year with a good amount of participants.

This year unfortunately only Miikka from the EditingSports trio is participating in the championships as Otto is still injured and Emil hasn't been practising seriously for a long time. We hope success for Miikka!

However, below is the top seeds for Men's and Women's singles

INTERESTING: Men --> Will Benedek Olah go for his 4th championship in row? Or can Pasi Valasti win his 10th (!) championship title? Or can we see a new national champion this year?

Women --> Will probably be a very tight fight about the gold medal. There are a lot of players that can win it. We will most likely (I'm not sure has anyone from the participants won Finnish Champs before) see a new champion here.


Men's singles 4 top seeds:

1. Benedek Olah
2. Pasi Valasti
3. Mika Räsänen
4. Roope Kantola

Women's singles 4 top seeds:

1. Luo Yumo
2. Jannika Oksanen
3. Pihla Eriksson
4. Annika Lundström

Full draws and results will pop up here: http://www.sptl.fi/

 

[Der_Echte]

Go Editing Sports.

 

[Pongfinity]

DD Thanks @Der_Echte!

 

[Dan]

Good luck to Miikka! Shame to hear about Otto's injury! I hate injuries!

Looking forward to the updates!

 

[Pongfinity]

Saturday was no big surprises;

In men's singles all the 8 best seeded made their way to Sunday's quarterfinals.

In women's singles the 4 best seeded made their way to Sunday's semi-finals.

Miikka lost 2-4 to the 4th seeded Roope Kantola in the round of 16.

 

[Pongfinity]

Sunday was a totally different day. We saw many big surprises.

In Men's singles quarterfinals the number 1 seeded Benedek Olah lost to Toni Soine 3-4, which made Olah's winning streak of the title break this year. In the other quarterfinals Pasi Valasti (2nd seeded and 9-time Finnish champion) lost to Timo Tamminen 2-4, Mika Räsänen (3rd seeded) beat Samuli Soine 4-1 and Roope Kantola (4th seeded) beat Aki Kontala 4-3 after being down 6-10 in the 7th set!

Quarterfinals:

Olah-T.Soine: 11,-4,9,-10,-5,10,7
Räsänen-S.Soine: -7,11,5,6,5
Kantola-Kontala: -9,8,10,6,-9,-8,13
Tamminen-Valasti: 7,-8,12,11,-7,7

 

[Pongfinity]

In the semi-finals:

Men's:

T.Soine vs Räsänen: 9,5,6,7
Kantola vs Tamminen: -6,5,5,9,3


Women's:

A.Lundström vs P.Eriksson: -8,7,7,7,-9,6
Luo Yumo vs Jannika Oksanen: 8,-7,8,-7,5,2

 

[Pongfinity]

So in the finals played:

Roope Kantola (4th seed) vs Mika Räsänen (3rd seed)

Luo Yumo (1st seed) vs A. Lundström (4th seed).


In Women's singles final Luo Yumo beat Lundström in four straight games, 4-0, and received her first Finnish Championship gold medal. Interesting, though, that the finalists met in the qualification pool also where Lundström beat Yumo 3-0. They both got through the qualification and met each other in the final again where it was Yumo's time to win.

Results: Yumo-Lundström: 8,4,5,5


The Men's singles final was a really tight match. Räsänen went to a 3-2 lead but Roope Kantola managed to eventually overcome the former Finnish champion Räsänen and won the match 4-3. Kantola won aswell his first senior Finnish championship now.

Results: Kantola-Räsänen: 6,-8,4,-4,-8,8,5

 

[Pongfinity]

The only one from us participating, Miikka, made his way to the semi-finals in Men's doubles together with Aki Kontala. Miikka and Aki had 3 match points against Hietikko/T.Soine but eventually lost 14-12 in the 5th set. Still a bronze medal