PPA Tour Europe’s first French stop had a French favourite in the men’s final and a women’s draw led, on singles points, by Raquel Amaro. Both were beaten by players with fewer points or none. On Saturday, Karbownik goes again in the doubles with a bye and Mikołaj Biedermann, the Barcelona singles bronze medallist, as his partner.
The first PPA Tour Europe singles titles ever played for in France went, in the end, to a Pole and to a woman who is not on the world singles list at all.
Bartosz Karbownik beat Théo Platel 11–8, 11–5 in the men’s final at JOCO Pickleball in Villeneuve-d’Ascq on Friday. Manon Garcia beat Viktória Kanichová 11–7, 11–4 in the women’s. Neither final went to a third game, and neither was the result the numbers suggested at breakfast.
Platel did the hard part, then met Karbownik
Platel came into Friday as the highest-ranked contracted man in the field, No.168 in the world, a Frenchman playing in France, and without a bye because his singles points did not earn one. He spent the day making up for it. He beat Aiman Fakieh 11–0, 11–0, survived Aubin Duchier from a game down (5–11, 11–2, 12–10), and then beat Krisztian Kaszoni, one of the four men who had sat out the first round, 11–7, 7–11, 11–2. Alberto Seccia went 11–8, 11–7 in the semi-final.
That is four wins and a lot of court time. Karbownik’s route was shorter at the start and harder in the middle. His first match went down as a withdrawal by Ali Fassahi, so his day began in the round of 16, where he needed 13–11 in the third game to get past Yuri Syromolotov Netrebin. After that he barely stopped. Maxence Schirrecker went 11–6, 11–4 in the quarter-final, and Davide Vendrame 11–0, 11–7 in the semi. In the final Platel did not reach nine in either game.
Karbownik came to Lille with 50 points on the world singles list the PPA published this week, 234th, built from a single tournament. Platel had 72 and sat 211th. The singles list was not wrong about who the better singles player was on Friday so much as it had very little to go on. One title in Lille has given it quite a lot more.
James Ling’s long way round
The best day at Lille that did not end in a final belonged to James Ling. The English Nationals Open mixed champion lost his round-of-16 match to Seccia 11–1, 11–3, which is the kind of scoreline that usually ends a day. In a double-elimination draw it merely redirects it. Ling then won five back-draw matches in a row: Ori Maior 15–12, Mathieu Roy 15–7, Clovis Dame 15–2, Schirrecker 15–11 and, for the bronze-match place, Seccia 15–12. Revenge served at 15.
The bronze went to Kaszoni, 2–11, 11–1, 11–6, after his own three-match back-draw run, but Ling had turned an 11–1, 11–3 defeat into a medal match, which is what double elimination is for.
Two of the men with byes did not finish the day. Cyril Peltier’s round-of-16 match against Dame went down as a withdrawal, and Mikołaj Biedermann, who lost his quarter-final to Seccia 3–11, 11–2, 3–11, also withdrew in the back draw. Both are entered in Saturday’s doubles.
Garcia beat the top of the draw on the way
The women’s draw had its own lesson about lists. Garcia does not appear on the world singles list the PPA published on 11 November. She beat Maja Nieradzik 11–0, 11–6, then Raquel Amaro, whose 106 singles points were the most in the draw and had earned her a bye, 11–6, 7–11, 11–7. Alexandra Zapletalová took the first game of the semi-final 11–4 and then won six points in the next two. In the final, Kanichová, who had come through Myriam Enmer 11–1, 2–11, 11–5 in the other semi, won 11 points in two games.
Enmer, the French player who arrived with the second-most singles points in the draw, took the bronze, beating Zapletalová 11–0, 11–6.
Saturday: doubles, and the singles champion has a bye
Saturday is men’s and women’s doubles. The men start at 08:30 local time, 07:30 in London, with 24 teams and eight byes. One of those byes belongs to Biedermann and Karbownik, whose opponents in the round of 16 will be either Kaszoni and Nicolas Ebran or Đạt Trần and Hai Bui Manh. So Karbownik’s first doubles match could be against the man who took singles bronze on Friday.
Platel has a bye too, with Boris Paque, and plays the winners of Michał Pochopień and Pim Huberts against Ori Maior and Ori Weizman. Ling and Martin Thomas meet the winners of Brayden Peck and Bobby Fitzpatrick against Dame and Alban Sauce. Peltier and Schirrecker are drawn against the winners of Baptiste Dussart and Alexis Aubry against Urbain Richard and Björn Bemelmans.
The women’s doubles, 16 teams, starts at 11:30 local, 10:30 in London. Enmer and Amaro play Ariane Minos and Lisa Lefèvre. Karolina Owczarek, the highest-ranked contracted woman in the field, and Caroline Nothnagel play Nieradzik and Klaudia Piadek. Kanichová and Klara Thell-Lenntorp play Anouk Van Hoek and Noesjka Brink, and Ellie Tomkinson and Marina Sičić open against Anna Rupf and Jean Iau. Gender-doubles winners who are contracted PPA pros take €1,200 a team, four times the singles cheque.
Friday was about who had the points and who had the day. Karbownik had the day. On Saturday he has a bye, a partner and a chance to show it was not just the one.
