It was the 3^rd MFMO and this year 95 masters played in three days in eight different events: 71 Finnish players and 24 foreigners. This year, many players used this tournament as a preparation for EMIC in Vienna. We were pleased to welcome also a few top-players, e.g. Fredrik Johnson, James Hyatt etc. as they wanted to get some matches before their main goal of this year.

After having run MFMO since 2017 we sincerely feel, we have been able to develop the event step-by-step up to a great level. From the 1^st and 2^nd tournament we gathered some constructive feedback and valuable ideas, which we then implemented this year. Both the starting/finishing times every day and the structure of the match schedule (Fri 2 – Sat 2 – Sun 1) worked very well. All matches of categories +60…+75 were played on glass back wall courts only and this seemed to be a good decision. Our experience tells us that the full glass court is not suitable for the oldest age groups.

In addition, one of the innovations, we did this time, were Thursday evening and Friday morning walks (free of charge) in Helsinki. Our goal was to share some basic information and fun facts about Finland and Harri Peltomaa, a Finnish writer, teacher and musician, led the tours in his professional way. People liked these walks very much! 

In this tournament the overall goal of us was to be generous in services and instead of that, to be moderate with commodities. All players naturally received a welcome gift and three first of each category got medals as prices. In addition, we gave medals in such categories, which were not played, as there were less than 3 entries. Those players needed to move to younger age categories. It was nice to see, how surprised and happy those players were, when they got medals of their original category.

I would like to say big thanks to the president of the local club Salmisaaren Sisu, Heikki Teräsvirta and the club’s 15 volunteers working in the venue and in transportation, to Mr Squash, Poku Salo for running all draws and results and to the managing director of Talihalli venue, Sari Niemistö. They made this great event possible. We were also very pleased with getting support from a few new people with completely different and valuable competence. 19-years old Joel Jalovaara ran all operative e-mail correspondence with players before the tournament, the executive director of Finnish Squash Association, Mika Monto organized (by himself!) good music for the players´ party and Mahesh Mangaonkar (PSA 54) acted as an excellent referee in the finals on Sunday.

In our tournament web-site you’ll find photos of those masters, who reached the podium: http://www.squash.fi/?page_id=21862

There were many good-level matches in different categories. Probably the highest quality offered the final in Men50 between James Hyatt, ENG vs. Anssi Määttänen, FIN. The final results (16-14, 11-8, 5-11, 17-15) tells a lot of this match. You’ll find complete results from here http://esf.tournamentsoftware.com/sport/draws.aspx?id=0D044204-D051-4766-941C-609E66595240

Photos of all 3 days, made by Petteri Repo you will find from here: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipMn1PPOS4kbkDNQcaxYBMMZ6ilOBChJN5ddn2P5ILBn3fNRJvXUpTxpoNBTXnO__Q?key=dGExV1FhUXpXUDg1QVNnWmlrakttcGx1b092NXdB. The photos are for clubs, media and players. In case you use them, please name the photographer, Petteri Repo, thank you. Enclosed, as examples, you´ll find a few photos, made by Petteri Repo and MFMO.

Photos were published daily at our web-site and in Facebook (European Masters group). As a new idea, we made videos, where we interviewed a few players. It seemed to be a good idea, at least in terms of likes in Facebook.