The bad news for the Pressbaumers came during the week. The Malaysian Iskander Zulkarnain, the strongest player in the league, was not issued a visa and was therefore unable to travel to the final. The Pressbaumers, who were originally considered clear favorites in the semi-finals, especially since Katrin Neudolt and Reka Sarosi had to watch the Mödlinger women’s team with a long-term injury, suddenly had concerns. And in Mödling, team leader Grassmück suddenly got his hopes up. “The Pressbaumers have opened the door for us a crack, now we have to go through it,” he said before the start of the game. Nevertheless, he complained about the order in which the games were scheduled: “We have to win at least one of the first five matches, then a win is still possible, if we win two, we are even the favorites because we are safe in the pairings seven, eight and nine are to be favored.” An assessment that was also shared in Pressbaum.
Unlike the regular season, all five disciplines (men’s and women’s doubles, men’s singles, women’s singles, mixed doubles) will be played in the semi-finals before the second and third men’s singles and finally the second men’s doubles are played. However, as soon as a team reaches five points, the match is ended and no further games are played. Due to the failure of Iskandar Zulkarnain, team captain Adi Pratama chose his line-up so that five points could be achieved as safely as possible. As second in the table, the Pressbaumers had home advantage and were able to fight for a place in the final in front of the home crowd, certainly a small advantage.
Pressbaum’s doubles for men and women are superior
In the first men’s doubles, Pratama went onto the field together with Pawel Smilowski to start positively against the strongest Mödling men’s doubles Luka Wraber/Ondrej Kral and get the first point for Pressbaum. And as the home team had hoped, they controlled the match at all times and won in two sets 21:14, 21:14.
In the women’s doubles, Alzbeta Basova/Lucie Cerna met Bianca Schiester and Serena Au Yeong from Mödling. The two women from Pressbaum started a little uncertainly, but were able to score the decisive points at the end of the first set and take the lead with 21:18. In the second set, the Mödlingers’ resistance was broken and the game went clearly to Pressbaum at 21:12 – a perfect start and a new score of 2:0.
Preliminary decision: Pratama defeats Wraber in three sets
Next up is the first men’s singles on the program, which was considered the decisive game. Pressbaum’s Indonesian Adi Pratama had to play against Austria’s national player Luka Wraber, who was eliminated from the Polish Open early on Friday and had arrived that night. In the regular season, Adi Pratama somewhat surprisingly managed a narrow 3-set win, but Wraber was once again the slight favorite. In the first set, Pratama was able to show his class a few times, but Wraber clearly had the upper hand with 21:14. In the second set, Pratama started much stronger and was in the lead throughout. In the end he managed to equalize with a 21:19 set win. In the decisive third set, both fought intensely for every point, without anyone being able to break away. But in the end it was Pratama who showed better nerves and was able to win the third set with 21:19, to the great delight of the Pressbaum team.
Wraber didn’t get home from the Polish Open Championships until late that night
The fact that “old master” Pratama did not have a drop in performance this time in the third set immediately after his doubles game was certainly a factor. Wraber also attributed his late arrival to the meeting. “I didn’t come back from Poland until after midnight. Then we immediately drove to Pressbaum, which was definitely not the best preparation.” Added to this is the disappointment that Olympic qualification is no longer possible. “After the bankruptcy in Poland, the chance fell below ten percent. “Now we need a top placement at the European Championships and also a final in a Challenger,” he says. And the ex-Pressbaumer is even considering perhaps concentrating entirely on the European Championships. “If it’s no longer mathematically possible to qualify for Paris, I’ll skip the Challenger too!” But with such serious considerations in mind, Wraber’s defense is that you can hardly win a game against Pratama.
The 3-0 lead was already a small preliminary decision, as the Pressbaumers were clear favorites in the following two games. And Lucie Cerna, who next competed against Bianca Schiester in the women’s singles, also did impressive justice to her role. In two quick sets of 21:10, 21:11, she gave her opponent no chance and increased the lead to 4:0. So all that was missing was a win to reach the final.
Pressbaum’s parade mixed stumbles, but Korosa as “life insurance”
For the supposedly final mixed doubles, the tried and tested pairing Smilowski/Basova took the field for Pressbaum, who met the strong Mödlinger Ondrej Kral and Serena Au Yeong, but were still actually chosen to close the bag. So far they have always been a force in the Bundesliga, but Pressbaum’s section manager Andreas Meinke wasn’t quite so sure. “With Kral/Au Yeong, the Mödlingers definitely have a pairing at the start that can catch our Slovaks off guard,” he was not quite as optimistic about this game. But he remained confident that he would reach the final. “We still have four cartridges and Mark Korosa in his single is practically our life insurance.”
But Pressbaum’s mixed duo started furiously and swept the Mödlingers off the field with an incredibly clear score of 21:9 in the first set and after that Meinke no longer expected that the “life insurance” would be successful. The young Korosa also played his singles against Michael Tomic on Mödling’s side. It was only in January that Korosa suffered a significant defeat against Mödlinger, but the good performance in the last game against Traun also fueled his confidence that they could pull off a surprise. And they did so convincingly in the first set with a score of 21:12.
Smilowski/Basova acted less convincingly in the second set of their game. More and more mistakes crept in and the second set was lost at 18:21. But Korosa pulled through his game in the second men’s singles, won the second set 21:13 and secured the decisive point for a 5-0 victory. Smilowski/Basova were also leading at this point in their mixed doubles, which could actually have ended. But both teams decided to continue playing the match. Smilowski/Basova even pulled away to 18:14, only to experience another complete collapse and lose the already insignificant set with 19:21. At least for Smilowski, the party mood was somewhat dampened by the initial shock, but in the end he was also happy about the upcoming repeat of last season’s final against the ASKÖ Traun team, which, as expected, won the semi-final against Wolfurt 5-2.
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Everyone is now looking forward to the finals
“In view of Iskandar Zulkarnain’s failure, we are very satisfied with the performance and the clear victory,” said Andreas Meinke, who hopes that Zulkarnain’s visa problems can be resolved before the final. “If we compete at full strength again, we have a good chance of being able to defend the title,” he believes. However, Grassmück points out that the home advantage in Traun is much greater than elsewhere. “The Trauner Hall is really a factor, it’s just difficult to play there,” he sees the record champions as a slight favorite.
In any case, the finals promise first-class badminton again, as the best two teams from recent years will meet again. The first game will be on the weekend of 20/21. April 2024 will be played in Pressbaum, the second and a possibly necessary third game will then take place in Traun.
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