Leids Open 2024
On Saturday March 2nd it was the first time that Sportcomplex 1574 was hosting it’s first Leids Open tournament. For us an exciting moment as we weren’t familiar with the conditions and technique in the hall, but we couldn’t let that spoil the fun. With the registrations open in December, we hoped for a nice and packed tournament.
And it was packed, with over 160 players from all over the country, and beyond, counting over 210 matches played between 9:00 and 23:30, with the final match concluded around midnight. This is something we didn’t see coming and we’ll take it with us in the evaluation.
Veglo players were present as well in the players field over all the categories and battled for the prizes, but unfortunately none of the home players went home with the title, but we had 2 runner ups: Jorick Beuman in the Men’s Single C category and the duo Nelleke Merkens and former Veglo player Ciara Dwyer were the runner ups in the Women Doubles B category.
Honorable mentions for other Leidse highlights are on it’s place as our neighbors of BC Leiden also competed and a few of them went home with the victory: Pierre Henriot won in the Men’s Single C category, while the Men’s Single category D was a full BC Leiden showdown between Jareth van der Weijden and Geoffrey Krol, where the former won the title. Mixed Double D was also a battle between BC Leiden players consisting of the duo Jareth van der Weijden in his second final of the day and Ashley Boshart against Pepijn van Empelen and Hilde van Keulen, where Jareth and Ashley secured their win.
One of the thing we heard multiple times was the daylight coming through the windows. Even though it was our first time playing during the day and everyone told us not to worry because we were surrounded by trees and higher buildings. Unfortunately the daylight did come through and players said that they couldn’t play a good match during the day. But at the end of the afternoon, when the sun started to set, the conditions became more playable for everyone. This definitely a thing to work on for next year and we will discuss this with the involved parties.
With all of this, we can look back to a good first edition of the tournament in our new hall and we hope to be able to take all the learning points to next year for an even better tournament. We would like to thank the staff of the hall for the preparations, technique and facilities in the hall during the tournament, Daniel van der Hengst and Allrackets.com for the stringing service, prizes and the stand in the hall, Ward van Mil on behalf of SMC RIjnland Fysiotherapeuten for the Physio services and last but not least; all the players and spectators, thank you all for coming.
The photos of the tournament can be found on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.932425682118685&type=3 and all results of the matches can be found here: https://badmintonnederland.toernooi.nl/tournament/a5bf9d08-b123-4e41-b347-29e61892f54d/Matches
Hopefully we can welcome you all again next year and we can make it an even better tournament.
With the sportive regards,
The Tournament Committee
