Chess-Tennis Masters 2023: A thrilling international competition with 41 participants from eight nations

2023-08-21 22:39:29

41 participants from eight nations competed in the entertaining combination competition at the WAC this year.

The newcomer Alexander Gschiel dominated the Chess-Tennis Masters 2023, which was held in Vienna’s second district, ahead of the Brazilian Ricardo Schutt, and the international chess champion Veronika Exler won the women’s event.

From August 12th to 14th, the ChessSports Association organized the International Chess-Tennis Masters at the Vienna Athletiksport Club for the second time. This combination of chess and tennis is not only enjoying increasing popularity in Austria. This is also reflected in the field of participants from eight nations. With Canada and Brazil, there were even two overseas nations.

“Pure tactics and thrills!”

On Saturday and Sunday, two preliminary round tournaments were played in chess and tennis, each with seven rounds according to the Swiss system. The chess tournament was won by FIDE master Alexander Gschiel ahead of Tobias Mayrhuber. In the tennis tournament, Niki Petschnig, ÖTV young talent Gschiel and Raphael Smekal each achieved six victories. For the first eight players, the knockout quarter-final pairings for the second phase of the tournament followed from the overall ranking of both preliminary round tournaments.

“The big goal of all participants is to reach the knockout phase of the tournament,” tournament organizer Wolfgang Moser summed it up. “This is pure tactics and thrills! From then on, tennis and chess were played alternately once morest the same opponent. Even if you excel in chess or tennis, you can no longer afford to be weak in the second discipline.” In the men’s final, there was an Austrian-Brazilian pairing. Here Gschiel was able to play to his strengths once morest Ricardo Schutt both in tennis and in chess.

In the women’s final, Annette Waaijenberg from Switzerland met Veronika Exler. With her international chess experience, Exler was able to successfully compensate for the weaknesses that still existed in tennis. In a heart-stopping final, she won the chess game just seconds before another switch to tennis. “I would never have thought that I might win the women’s competition and I am therefore overjoyed,” announced the beaming winner.

An almost doubled double competition

On Monday the event ended with a chess-tennis doubles competition. “Already twelve teams took part this year”, event organizer Moser was pleased. “That’s an increase of almost 100 percent and shows that we hit the mark with this format!” The Austrians Harald Schneider-Zinner / Nicolas Moser were the superior winners with nine out of ten possible points.