There was double delight for Germany at the 2026 ESF European Club Squash Championships in Nurnberg as Sportwerk Hamburg and Paderborn took home the titles.
Sportwerk, who finished runners-up last year in their first ever ECC men’s final, went one better this year by defeating first-time finalists Galomar of Portugal 3-0 on Saturday.
Paderborn, who won the women’s title for the first time last year in Graz, defended their crown in dominant fashion by conquering Herriot Watt of Scotland 2-1 to complete a clean sweep of six victories in the round-robin format.
Sportwerk clinch first ECC men’s crown
Sportwerk’s men lost only one match out of 17 all week and were comprehensive victors over Portuguese champions Galomar in the final.
Yannick Omlor, who won the $3k PSA Aramis Club Open in Belgium last week, completed an unbeaten campaign at Nurnberg’s Sportpark Nord by downing Galomar’s Pascal Gomez of Spain 11-7, 11-5, 11-3 in the opening rubber.
Melvil Scianimanico then faced England international Patrick Rooney in the second match. They had also met in the pool stage, where the young Frenchman won 12-10 in the fifth, and their rematch was also highly entertaining. It was 20-year-old Scianimanico who took it again 11-6, 11-8, 14-12.
With a 6-0 lead in games, that meant Sportwerk only needed to win one game in the third rubber — which Dutchman Samuel Gerrits just about achieved, taking it 19-17, to the delight of the supporters who’d made the long journey down from the north.
It’s a busy period for Sportwerk, who host the German Masters next weekend and have signed world No.3 Paul Coll for the defence of their German League title.
Sportwerk team manager Bart Wijnhoven said: “We became German champions for the first time last year and finished second in the Europeans. This year, we became champions again and winning this puts the crown on two years of work. Now we have all the titles in our pocket, so we are happy people!”
Algemesi of Spain won an incredibly tight men’s bronze medal play-off against Roehampton of England, winners for the previous two years. The match ended 2-2 and 8-8 in games. The points difference was 147-140! The London club had lost their No.1, Sam Osborne-Wylde, to injury earlier in the tournament.
Paderborn defend women’s title
The women’s competition was played in a seven-team round-robin format but the concluding fixture between Heriot Watt and Paderborn was essentially a final as both teams headed into it with five wins out of five.
It was German team Paderborn, the defending champions, who quickly took control. No.2 Maya Weishar was a confident 11-6, 11-6, 11-9 victor over Malaysian Yu Ng Chen in the opening rubber.
German champion Saskia Beinhard then came up against Herriot Watt’s 20-year-old Robyn McAlpine in the clash of the No.1s and the more experienced player took it 11-9, 11-3, 7-11, 11-2 in 40 minutes.
Although the result was settled, team coach Donna Lobban, former Commonwealth Games gold medallist for Australia, played the dead rubber against Dutchwoman Milou van der Heijden and earned a 11-7, 5-11, 11-7 consolation victory.
Afterwards, 20-year-old Weishar, who was also part of last year’s winning Paderborn team, said: “I really enjoyed the week. It’s special because you fight for your team not just yourself. The team spirit was great, we supported each other and it was such a super event.”
Czech club Modry Svet, led by Anna Serme, finished third with four wins out of six.
Check out all the results from the 2026 ESF European Club Squash Championships
Watch all the action back from Nurnberg on European Squash TV
Check out the roll of honour for the European Club Squash Championships
