Thomas Hallback

MBF fights for the playoffs

MBF finished the FM Series fall round with seven points out of a possible nine. The team is now in fifth place — the top four will advance to the spring playoffs. MBF is one point behind fourth-placed TuKa and three behind third-placed OPT-86. 

We showed really strong team strength and above all we won the first match against TIP-70 surprisingly clearly 5-1., says team leader Thomas Hallbäck.

Both Lassi Lehtola and Johan Pettersson managed to defeat Juho Kahlos, who surprisingly won the GP tournament two weeks ago. Madis Moos, like Lehtola, certainly won both of his matches. The opponent's only point came against Marina Donner, who was seriously hampered by a shoulder injury and could no longer continue playing.

Against Kosken Kaiku, there were difficulties, as the team brought with them their foreign professional, Finland's number two Alex Naumi. As expected, he won his match, but at 2-3, MBF had a chance to equalize. Madiss Moos lost to Rasmus Vesalainen in the fourth set 13-15 and in the fifth set 11-13 after very even struggles and a few match points. But when the doubles pair Moos/Pettersson then surprisingly won the doubles match against Naumi/Vesalainen 3-0, MBF managed to grab a point with a narrow loss of 3-4.

The final match against OPT/Ratamo ended exactly as planned with a clear 5-0 victory. 

It was a nice day, but so far we've had more "postballs" go out than in., Pettersson reflects.

In the first rounds of the fall series, the team lost a few close matches against TuKa, OPT-86, and PT-75, all of which could have led to additional points. 

This is going to be an interesting spring tour!