Tennis professional Philipp Kohlschreiber is in his 17th participation in the Hamburg ATP tournament after a strong fighting performance in the round of 16.
The 37-year-old Augsburg defeated the Spaniard Jaume Munar 7: 6 (7: 5), 6: 4 in the first round. The pro, who is number 117 in the world rankings, was the only German in action on the first day of the event.
Against the ranked 66. Munar came to Kohlschreiber better with increasing duration and delivered rallies with the 13-year-old rival, some of which were worth seeing. In the first round, Kohlschreiber fended off four set balls and won the tiebreak. In the second set he initially missed six match points and finally secured victory after 2:05 hours.
In the Hanseatic city, Kohlschreiber wants to collect match practice for the Olympic Games in Tokyo. However, his top results at Rothenbaum were some time ago: in 2014 and 2017 he was in the semi-finals. In the past three years, the first round has always been the end of the line for him.
The end in the first round came for Nicola Kuhn. The 21-year-old former German, who has had Spanish citizenship since 2015, was defeated by the Brazilian Thiago Seyboth White 6: 1, 1: 6, 2: 6.
The number one seeded Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas had a bye. The 22-year-old, who lost to Russian Andrey Rublev in the final last year, made a declaration of love for the Hanseatic city. “Hamburg is so green, so many trees, that’s totally relaxing for me,” he said. “I almost feel at home here, I haven’t felt that way anywhere else.”
.
