Meltron Finnish Masters Open - the beginning of a tradition

Salmisaaren Sisu, an active squash club in our capital area in co-operation with the Finnish Squash Association and Talihalli venue were happy to organize the 1st Meltron Finnish Masters Open 2017 in Helsinki.

When putting the tournament together we knew that the time is challenging: Continental Europe is largely on vacation in August, there will be a traditional squash tournament in Riga, Latvia during the same weekend – and the European Masters Championships would be only in a couple of weeks ahead. But we knew, that with effective marketing and communication we will succeed. And we did.

Finland has a very active Masters’ squash scene and our Masters’ players have participated in all Masters World and European Championships since 2003, when Finland had the honour of hosting the World Masters. So we knew that we will have a number of domestic players taking part in the tournament. Of course we hoped that there would be as many European players as possible and we think we succeeded in that objective as well. We are sure we will have a lot more players in 2018, when we organize the tournament again. The schedule is already ready, so we are happy to see twice as much players next year.

Finland and the Finnish Squash Association have always aimed at organizing high quality events. Finnish Squash has a long history of hosting European as well as World class events. The first European Team Championship in Finland was in 1980 followed by 1989, 1998, 2011 and the latest one in April 2017. The Men’s World Team Championships in 1991 as well as the World Masters in 2003 were a success. Apart from these prestigious events we have had the pleasure of hosting many other European Championships for Juniors and Clubs.

In 2017, Finland celebrates a century of independence and continuous democracy. The secret of Finland is simple. We have had lots of practice: We became autonomous 208 years ago when the Grand Duchy of Finland was formed in 1809 and we have had a parliament of our own ever since 1906. Finland’s 100 years of independence was also highly visual in our tournament and we know that all our European guests also joined our celebration.

We are happy to welcome all our Masters friends to take part in the 2nd Finnish Masters Open in August 2018.