After a very successful passage in 2005, the World Championships were back in Helsinki in 2011. As I couldn’t make it to the event that year, I entrusted my friend Geneviève Bousquet with the task of filming the tournament. As she also competed in two of these finals, that complicated her task somewhat. As a result, the women singles and doubles finals are filmed with a fixed camera from the center, and we lose some of the action when the players are in the back of the court, but still we see most of it.
Two of the 5 finals are way up there in the highest quality of playing, namely the mixed doubles and open doubles.
-Mixed is definitely my favorite of WFC2011, as PT Lovern exhibited a great display of spectacular spikes.
-The open doubles finals was very well played, with very few direct errors by the kickers involved.
-The open singles finals crowned a Finnish player in his country, and it was fun to watch as it offered some spectacular moments.
-The women doubles was a long and tight matchup between experienced players but it could have been better overall as too many unforced errors were recorded.
-In the women singles finals Geneviève Bousquet won without forcing her talent as her opponent, Piia Tantarimäki, was still pretty green at the time.

2011 IFPA World Footbag Championships
July 31-August 6, 2011
Helsinki, Finland

Finals Matches:

Women singles net finals

Competitors: 
Geneviève Bousquet from Montreal, Canada – Club Aki Québec vs
Piia Tantarimäki from Finland – Club Footbag Finland

Format Best of 3 games to 21 points rallye scoring

This was Piia’s first appearance in a finals match whereas Geneviève had won 2 women doubles titles at the time and the difference showed. I would have liked to see Bousquet play with more aggression as she pretty much returned the footbag on the other side waiting for her opponent to make mistakes. Geneviève can spike the bag like a man but she chose to play conservatively which was enough to win but didn’t make for the most exciting match.
Bousquet wins: 21-11 21-16

Advanced Stats available for this match here

Open singles net finals

Competitors:
Tuomas Kärki from Helsinki, Finland – Club Footbag Finland  vs
François Depatie-Pelletier from Montréal, Québec – Club Aki Québec 

Format Best of 3 games to 21 points rallye scoring

Tuomas Kärki was the champion from 2010 and with the title came the experience. Depatie-Pelletier on the other hand was a total surprise in that finals as he is known to be one of the best doubles players on the tour, he was in the 2010 Open doubles finals, but singles is not usually his forte. Both players kept all their serves in during the whole match which is admirable but as François has a powerful serve he might have been better to take some chances with it. The main difference in that match was Tuomas’s aggressivity while the two kickers had pretty much the same amount of unforced errors the finn’ totalized 15 more winners than the Montrealer. Nowadays in singles you can’t win a major title by just attacking from the midcourt or placing the ball, you have to set and spike and Tuomas did just that.
Kärki wins in 2 straight sets 21-13 21-13

Advanced Stats available for this match here

Women doubles net finals

Competitors:
Jody Welch + Julie Symons from  California, USA – Club , Chaos Footbag  vs
Maude Landreville + Geneviève Bousquet from Montreal, Canada – Club Aki Québec

Format Best of 3 games to 21 points rallye scoring

This is the match that couldn’t happen too many times as one or another of these teams couldn’t make it for a reason or another in many previous Worlds. These four are the cream of the cream of women Footbag with a lot of titles although much more on the Americans side over time. Considering that the match was a little bit disappointing as all the players finished the brawl with more unforced errors than winners. After the second game I thought that Aki Québec was in good position with an easy win (21-13 ) but they had an horrendous beginning of game 3 and could never close the gap although they came within striking distance. One of the factors, in my opinion, is that Bousquet didn’t seem to trust her partner enough as she could have set Landreville more to the net. Maude is a pretty decent spiker and she was under employed. Also Geneviève returned a lot of rallye shots on the other side instead of setting the bag up to construct plays. As usual the Californians folded but didn’t break.
Chaos finishes on top with a victory in 3 tough sets 21-17 13-21 21-19

Advanced Stats available for this match here

Mixed doubles net finals

Competitors: 
PT Lovern + Jody Welch from  California, USA – Club: Chaos Footbag  vs
Florian Götze + Kerstin Anhuth, Frankfurt, Germany – Club Frankfurt Footbag e.v

Format Best of 3 games to 21 points rallye scoring

My favorite match of all the net finals this one offered some spectacular spiking by PT Lovern especially but Florian Götze was pretty good too. Kerstin Anhuth entered her first finals with the least experience of high level kicking,  she managed to do pretty good in the first game but had more mistakes in the second. Jody Welch was solid as usual and she offered a lot of sets on a silver platter for PT to smash hard. Lovern ended the contest with a superb Sun Back spike that reflected his many acrobatics actions in that contest.
Chaos wins it by 21-19 21-13

Advanced Stats available for this match here

Open doubles net finals

Competitors: 
Florian Götze from Frankfurt, Germany – Club Frankfurt Footbag e.v. + Manu Bouchard from Montreal, Canada – Club Aki Québec vs
Janne Uusitalo + Matti Pohjola respectively from Helsinki and Turku, Finland – Club Footbag Finland

Format Best of 3 games to 21 points rallye scoring

This was also a very good match with very few direct errors by all the players. The plays were well built and effective and it was tight from the beginning to the end of each game with a lot of momentum swings. I’m sure that the finnish supporters would have liked to see their favorites prevail, they came close but they had very strong and experienced opponents on the other side of the net.

The Germany-Canada alliance wins in two very close sets 22-20  21-19

Advanced Stats available for this match here