Fédération de Squash Luxembourgeoise

Luxembourg finishes in 18th place of 28 teamsOn Saturday , the CITCO-sponsored Luxembourg men’s squash team played their final match of the European Team Squash Championships in Amsterdam against the Czech Republic. At stake was 17th place after Luxembourg’s impressive start to the tournament. The Czechs proved too strong for the Luxembourg squad, the first two matches on court resulting in defeat 3/0 for Nathan Sneyd at no1 and Vince Pauli at no.4. When Daniel Kaiser at no.3 lost the first set, the match was over, but young Danny Hutchines, playing at no.2 in a "dead rubber" put in a good disciplined performance to take the game 2/1 after being a set down. That completed a good week for Danny, who won all of his four matches during the week. Luxembourg therefore finished in 18th place out of 28 teams, a wonderful performance having not played at this level for 11 years.  picture taken from www.squashsite.co.ukResults:Nathan SNEYD lost to Pavel SLADECEK 4/9 ; 2/9 ; 0/9Danny HUTCHINES beat Lukas JEUNEK 5/9 ; 9/6 ; 9/1Daniel KAISER lost to Jaroslav CECH 0/9 ; 3/9Vincent PAULI lost to Ondrej ERTL 2/9 ; 3/9 ; 0/9 Further information:

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In an enthralling encounter, Citco-sponsored Luxembourg Men’s Squash team upset the rankings again with a fine victory over Israel who were seeded 17. The national coach Nathan Sneyd set the ball rolling with his best performance of the week with a very impressive 3/0 win over the Israeli #1. The Israeli #3 meanwhile levelled the tie with a victory over Luxembourg’s Stephane Ayache. This set the stage for a thrilling finale. Both Sanjay Raval’s game at #2 and Daniel Hutchines’ at #4 were evenly matched and the balance of the tie swung both ways as the games progressed. Danny Hutchines’ finally overpowered his rival from the European Junior squash circuit winning 9/2 in the fifth. Sanjay Raval fought back from 2-1 down to level the scores 2-2 but in the end had to concede defeat when an injury prevented him from continuing the match. This made it 2-2 in individual matches, and 8-8 on sets won, but Luxembourg won by virtue of a superior points tally 108-95.Luxembourg now play Czech Republic tomorrow at 10am for the placings 17th and 18th. Sneyd beat Nadav Wilenski        9/2 9/1 9/3Raval Lost to Nir Arkin                3/9 9/5 6/9 9/1 5/9Ayache lost to Ari Gittelband      6/9 0/9 5/9Hutchines beat Nir Zissman        6/9 10/9 9/0 4/9 9/2  Further information:

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Having qualified as champions of Pool H, Citco sponsored Luxembourg went into the knockout stages of the competition earlier today for positions 13 to 20. 15th seeded Hungary proved far too strong for the unseeded Luxembourg squad winning 3-1. At number 1 Nathan Sneyd was no match for Mark Krajcsak (WR 30) and lost 3/0. Daniel Kaiser playing his first match for the Luxembourg team put up a game effort only to lose 3/0. After Vincent Pauli (playing in position 4) lost the first set of his match victory was secured for Hungary and the two remaining matches became the best of three sets. Vincent (in the end) went down 2/0, but Sanjay Raval put in sublime performance to beat (WR98) Marton Szaboky 2/1.Luxembourg now face Israel later today (17:00) in the battle for for the places 17 to 20. Sneyd lost to Mark Krajcsak        0/9 2/9 2/9Raval beat Marton Szaboky        10/9 2/9 9/7Kaiser lost to David Reiser           4/9 4/9 1/9Pauli lost to Daniel Varga            1/9 0/9  

Following yesterday’s initial superb 3-1 victory over Ukraine in the European Team Squash Championship, the Citco-sponsored Luxembourg men’s team registered another fine victory today over Latvia 3-1. The victory means that unseeded Luxembourg win their qualifying pool and will now play in a knockout stage with seven other teams for places 13 to 20. This is already a magnificent achievement given that Luxembourg has not competed in the championships for 11 years. The match was in the balance after Nathan Sneyd conceded the first string match to a very strong Latvian opponent. However, Stephane Ayache levelled the score with a 3-0 victory which was closer than the scoreline suggests. Sanjay Raval enjoyed a second comfortable 3/0 victory playing at number 2, and the tie was sealed by young Danny Hutchines who survived a small knock to the face from his opponents racket to win 3/0. Sneyd lost to Alex Pavulans        1/9 9/6 2/9 2/9Raval  Beat Arnis Tihvinskis        9/1 9/3 9/3Ayache beat Kaspars Purgailis    10/8 9/4 10/8Hutchines beat Gunars Prizevoits    10/8 9/2 9/2 Follow the latest news, including interviews and photos on www.etcsquash2008.nl  and on www.squashsite.co.uk Further information:

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Good news from Amsterdam…Luxembourg beats Ukraine 3-1picture taken from www.squashsite.co.ukIn an impressive start to the European team squash championships Luxembourg men won their first pool game against Ukraine 3-1. Ukraine the highest ranked team in the group are seeded number 20 but the Luxembourg team were in contol from the beginning. Nathan Sneyd and Sanjay Raval both won 3-0. Stephane Ayache had a difficult time against a strong Ukraine number 3. He fought back gamely in the 2nd and 3rd sets but in the end went down 3-0. The number 4 string match provided the closest match of the tie, Danny Hutchines for Luxembourg coming back to win 10-8 in the 5th having earlier been 2-1 down.Luxembourg now look forward to the next pool match against Latvia, seeded 23. Luxemboug now have high hopes of winning the group from an unseeded position.  Sneyd beat Dolinich (9/5 9/1 9/1)Raval beat Shandybin (9/5 9/3 9/5)       Ayache lost Sherbakov( 4/9 7/9 8/10)    Hutchines beat Rybalchenko ( 9/1 6/9 3/9 9/3 10/8) tournament website:  www.etcsquash2008.nl        

It has been more than 10 years since Luxembourg competed in The European Squash Team Championships (ETC). This year the Fédération de Squash Luxembourgeoise (FSL) has entered a men’s team for the Championships which is great news for the squash community in and around Luxembourg. The Championships will take place in the Frans Otten Stadium, Amsterdam from April 30th – May 3rd 2008. This will be the biggest ETC tournament in history, with 27 men’s teams participating. The National teams, both men & women, have had success in recent years in the European Small Nations Squash Tournament. For the past two years both teams have claimed first place in the tournament which includes Malta, Monaco, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Cyprus. Winning both titles in 2006 when the tournament was hosted by Luxembourg was a major breakthrough and also a first as no other country had previousy won both titles at the same tournament. Not content with this success, the men’s team will be looking to raise their standard to the next level and compete with the best teams in Europe. Not only are the top European teams among the best in the world (with England & France being ranked 1st & 3rd respectively) but many of them include some of the best individual players in the world. This will certainly be a tough task for a Nation as small as Luxembourg but the team is relishing the prospect of playing against such admirable talent. Further information:

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The prospects for LuxembourgDue to not competing for such a long time and having no players competing on the Professional Squash Association Tour (PSA), Luxembourg has not been seeded. The official draw  has placed the team in a pool with (seedings in brackets) Ukraine (20) and Latvia (23) in the first phase of the tournament. The teams in this pool are in the First Division (as opposed to the Premier Division which includes  the highest ranked teams ). Should we finish 1st, we will be playing off for positions 13 -20 as well as promotion to the Premier Division. This would put Luxembourg in a play-off section with three more knock-out matches to play. Should we finish in 2nd or 3rd place in the pool, we will be playing off for positions 21-28. Ukraine and Latvia represent unknown quantities for the Luxembourg team, and are sure to provide stiff opposition. Success would then mean matches against the likes of Italy (13), Austria (14), Hungary (15) or Belgium (16) and in all of these countries, squash is well-developed, with a big pool of players to choose from, so an even bigger challenge would be guaranteed. Further information:

• Click here for information about CITCO

• Click here for the tournament website