Kirsten Rackets Atkinson

World Doubles Championships Switzerland May 21st-26th 2025!!

Unfortunately another injury filled weekend for me at the World Doubles Champs in Zurch, injuring a different part of my back in my squash warm up before even starting! I really enjoyed playing with for the first time despite only playing one match and unfortunately didn't even get to played any Mixed Doubles matches 😩

Despite all this, I had a lovely week supporting the other Team GB Players, eating fondue and exploring Zurich with ❤️

Berlin Open 9th May 2025

Unfortunately my weekend at the Berlin Opem was cut short by a back injury and so I had to pull out of the tournament part way through the women's doubles in our 4th match out of 5. Gutting to be here and unable to play but was great catching up with old and new friends, again spending lots of time with and and then exploring Berlin this morning with !

I'm off to rest and recover in the hope I can be back to fighting fit in time for the World Champs in 2 weeks!

Great weekend of sport in York! Played the Dunnington Open Graded Tournament on Saturday winning 2/4 matches and losing very closely 2-1 to the eventual winner of the grade (who's squash level is double mine!) I ended the tournament in 4th place out of 12 participants in the D grade and added 50 points to my squash levels as an extra bonus 🤗

I then played in my first Yorkshire Badminton league today, playing 2 ladies doubles and a mixed doubles (and a cheeky singles at the end for practice). My partner Karen and I won our ladies doubles 27-25 in the 3rd after coming back from 11-2 down in the 3rd set, I then lost my mixed doubles with Simon against an experience pair. Unfortunately a member of the other team went home injured and so my final ladies doubles with Lisa was technically 21-0 21-0 walkover but we had fun playing a fun match against the other ladies for fun. Our team won 6-3 overall, with a first win of the season for the team woop!

Overall I'm happy with my performance this weekend and I am ready for a (restful?!) Week of working before the British Champs next weekend!

All-time World Ranking high and Cambridge Tier 4 Badminton Tournament! (My first ever badminton tournament!)

Last weekend (30th March) I travelled down to Cambridge to compete in my first ever badminton tournament (other than the School Championships In 6th form 😂)

I had a great time competing against some very good badminton players, with lots of very good rallies. I did not win any matches but all gained lots of experience and insight into my own game and look forward to entering more later in the year!

It was also lovely to see my good friend .bailey1 and we had a lovely time catching up, thank you again for hosting me!

I am also excited to be 4th place in the FIR race at the moment for the first time and achieve an all time racketlon world ranking high in Singles and Mixed Doubles this month, entering the top 30 in Singles, top 50 in Mixed Doubles and re-entering the top 20 in Ladies Doubles!

Finnish Open February 2025!

I had a fantastic weekend in Helsinki playing in my first racketlon tournament of the year. It was really lovely to meet so many new people and also catch up and spend time with the other international racketlon players!

I enjoyed playing with Heli for the first time in doubles and we had 2 close matches in the Elite draw. We played well together, winning both our table tennis games and it was great practice for the World Championships where we will be teaming up in the Women's B 💪

I also played in my second ever IWT Elite Singles where I placed 7th out of 8. I started off playing World #1 making improvements in my TT and badminton from last time, but still losing before tennis. I then had a super-close marathon match against who won 21-19 21-17 16-21 21-18. I won my final match of the weekend against Edinburgh Uni's newest recruit Summer 6-21, 21-10 21-3 8-3.

All in all I was very happy with my performance over the weekend and am finally starting to see points improvements in badminton which is really exciting. I am off to reflect and keep training for my first SWT the Polish Open in March!