A short, whistling tone reveals that crossminton matches are underway at the Dutch Open in Arnhem, the Netherlands. The sound is produced by a smaller and heavier shuttlecock than in badminton. This so called speeder is hit back and forth in a match between 28-year-old German Vincent Eulenberg (number 5 at the world ranking) and 22-year-old Frenchman Guénolé Coiffard (number 7). They are opponents on the small court, but friends outside it. “Guénolé will be joining me in Germany for four months at the beginning of January, then we will prepare for the world championship at the end of May,” says Eulenberg.
Crossminton, which originated in Germany at the beginning of this century, is played on one half (in length) of a tennis court. The player hits the speeder into the playing area that runs from the service line to the baseline. The speeder must land in the same square on the other side to score points. There is no net, which means the heavy shuttlecock can also be hit low to the ground, creating lightning-fast rallies.
Many players come from other racket sports, such as badminton and tennis. Eulenberg came into contact with the sport through his university. “I immediately fell in love with the sport ánd the community. I made so many friends through this sport, that’s priceless.” The big sporting difference with other racket sports is of course the lack of a net. “For a beginner that is very good, it’s easy to start, but as you reach a higher level it’s getting more difficult”, says Eulenberg. “You need to develop skills to play the speeder like ten centimeters above the ground to the other square. To defend such plays, that is very hard. I have to dive a lot to prevent the speeder touching the ground!” His spectacular semi-final match against Coiffard shows what he means. The Frenchman wins the match, and later wins the tournament as well.
His dream is to become world champion. “I take this sport very seriously,” says the French player. “I took a gap year from my study for physiotherapist to focus on crossminton. Recently, I’ve been to Japan to play a tournament and to learn from the current world champion Akihiko Nishimura. He’s one of the three world champions in the history of our game. The tournament has only been held eight times. So, it’s going to be very difficult to win it, but I’ll try!”
For the first time, the tournament in the Netherlands is one of the five Grand Slams in the world. It’s one of the reasons the couple Ron Stokkink and Jolanda Keultjes, tournament organizers and players at EKCA, the only crossminton club in the Netherlands, to create a well-organized event. “It’s really great to see everything runs smooth, to see the smiles on so many faces, to receive the thank yous. That is what we do it all for”, says Keultjes. “That everyone’s having a good time.” That ‘all’ includes – among many things – making sure that there are physiotherapists, that the program booklets look good, that sponsors have been attracted, that participants know which public transport to take and that on Friday evening the self-made lines are stuck on the floor.
Traveling
For many players, crossminton is primarily a community sport. That’s also the case for the 38-year-old German Anja Rolfes of the independent crossminton club SpeedLights Munich. She played tennis until she was 19, then started playing badminton, after which she got acquainted with crossminton through a demonstration at a cultural festival in Munich. “My level in the other sports was decent, but not enough to compete in international tournaments. Now, in crossminton, that ís possible, which allows me to combine my passion for traveling with my passion for the sport,” says the world’s number 5. “The combination of styles in those racket sports makes crossminton a lot of fun. At first you think it’s pretty limited: how can I even score in such a small square (the area where the speeder needs to land is 18×18 feet, DtG)? You need to find the spot to land the speeder, that’s one of the challenges of the game.”
A broader challenge is to let the sport grow. Would it be possible, for example, to follow the path of padel, which has grown incredibly fast in many countries in the last five years? Rolfes: “It’s not what I feel is happening or should happen in our sport. This is a small community. Some countries support their players, but most of us travel at their own expense and pay the entrance fee for tournaments themselves. And that’s fine. It’s what you give, to get satisfaction and friends in return. No one can live from the sport, but that makes it nice. If it’s about big money… I don’t know, that changes the spirit of the game.”
Nevertheless, some growth might be welcome. The sport is primarily played in eastern parts of Europe; countries such as Czechia and Slovenia and there are a lot of highly skilled players in Japan. Eulenberg hopes the quality of the competition is becoming better. “We see the same players in every tournament, which is great, because for me the journey of the sport is the fun of it. Staying in one apartment sometimes with twelve other players, that’s fun! But I will be happy if some more new faces show up, who can take the sport to a higher level. I want to be challenged every single match of big tournaments.”
Accessible sport
In the Netherlands, organizer Ron Stokkink wants to try to let the sport grow steadily in quantity. “Our club in Arnhem now has about thirty members. That number can certainly be increased by the same amount, but there is no urge to grow more. We have also linked a clinic to this tournament. The point is to get people moving. That is very well possible with this accessible sport. You can play it anywhere: in the park, on a square. You don’t have to rent a court. Consider us the little brother of padel, without commercial motives. My plan is to interest tennis clubs that do not have the money to build a padel court in crossminton, for example.”
Perhaps the international crossminton community will be back in Arnhem next year at the European Championship. The international association was so impressed by the location and the good organization that they asked Stokkink and his wife to apply for that tournament. “Very nice, but we have to be able to handle that, so we are going to think about it carefully,” says Stokkink.