Cycle-ball Worlds in Ludwigsburg: results from the opening day
The men's Elite League opened on Friday, 30 October, with Belgium beating Japan's Yusuke Murakami and Noboru Tokuhiro 2-1 in Group A. Hosts Germany, represented by Michael Birkner and Robert Mlady, closed the day with a 7-4 win over France's Mathias and Quentin Seyfried. In Group B, the Czech pair Jiří Hrdlička st. and Jan Kripner defeated Hungary 5-1, while Austria's Patrick Schnetzer and Markus Bröll beat Switzerland's Timon and Yannick Fröhlich 4-1.
In the women's tournament, Switzerland's Sava Baumann and Chiara Dotoli first beat Japan's Yuka Yoshimura and Sayaka Tokuhiro 2-0. In the evening they lost 7-2 to the defending champions from Germany, Judith Wolf and Danielle Holzer.
In the Challenger League, Slovakia and Italy topped their groups. Malaysia needed a penalty shoot-out to get past Hong Kong in the quarter-finals, and Armenia beat Great Britain. In the semi-finals Armenia defeated Slovakia and Italy beat Malaysia, which sets up an Armenia–Italy final on Saturday at 11:36.
The Challenger League winner then meets the eighth-placed Elite team in a relegation match on Sunday. Saturday brings the remaining men's group games first, followed by the men's quarter-finals in the evening.