James Peach is the new Austrian Open 2022 Champion!

James Peach (ENG, WRL 172) won the final of this years Austrian Open at EUROPARK shopping mall against topseed Yannick Wilhelmi (SUI, WRL 94) in a 5 game battle after 63min.

The 25 year old Englishman James Peach showed us a great perfomance through the whole tournament and could finally become the champion of the Austrian Open 2022. Unfortunately it wasn´t enough for Yannick Wilhelmi who could not meet his own expections. It was a very close match and both players have given everything for the entire match. The filled crowd was astonished by the accuracy and athleticism both showed.

Yannick was able to win the first game very clearly. Though he was not able to keep up the rhythm in the second game. His opponent James could win the second and third game. Then the Swiss could probably feel the pressure on his shoulders. He had a great start in the fourth game and was more active but the Englishman made his live really hard. James came back from 4/10 to level to 10/10. Eventually Yannick was able to take the game 12/10.

The final game was very exciting and tight as well. It went point by point, just towards the end of the game the Englishman was able to take a lead and won the deciding game 11/7 after 63min to become the new Austrian Open Champion.

Both players showed the crowd amazing skills and great performances. It was one of the best matches played here in Salzburg on the glasscourt at EUROPARK. Both played an incredible tournamant and the specators were amazed by their overall performances.

Final score: James Peach (ENG, WRL 172) – [2] Yannick Wilhelmi (SUI, WRL 94) 4/11, 11/9, 11/5, 10/12, 11/7 63min

The champion’s and runner’s up trophy were handed over by vice-mayor of Salzburg Mr.Bernhard Auinger who offered the city’s support in the future again! We are very thankful for this support. This is so much appreciated especially with the perspective that the Austrian Squash federation shows only little interest to support the event. The whole two weeks unfortunately no offical representative of the federation visited Austria’s biggest and most important squash event.

We are all very thankful to all our other supporters and sponsors and of course our host the EUROPARK shopping mall offering such a great venue. Many thanks also to all volunteers and people that helped organising and running this mega event!

It was another unforgettable two weeks of squash and a great advertising for this beautiful game and hopefully there will be many people picking up squash in the near future! There was great coverage in different media channels, TV, Radio, Newspaper, online etc. In addition to that there will be a summary and pictures coming up soon!

For now we congratulate the players and hope to see you all next year again!

All pictures can be used by the reference of our photographer Jasmin Walter.