They parted ways the next day at the latest, when most of them flew out again – literally. Anja Wildgruber, for example, flew to Tunisia, where the 20-year-old from MTTC Iphitos Munich will continue her tennis career. Laura-Ioana Paar from TC Aschheim was on the pitch on Whit Monday in Austria; almost all of the players and opponents spread across the map. Laura Putz, on the other hand, stayed at home and took two days off. This sets the stage for what the 18-year-old from Aschheim has achieved this season in the second women’s Bundesliga South.
She has won four of her six singles. All her doubles. “You have to praise the whole team,” says Aschheim coach Mircea Paar, “but if you want to single out one, it’s Laura.” In second place, she mostly had to deal with professionals who were in the WTA rankings around position 400 or better, while she herself is not included in the world rankings and thinks in completely different points – in those that she is just for Abi collects.
Putz won her last match on Pentecost Sunday in the derby against Iphitos, 6:3, 6:4 against Wildgruber. Aschheim prevailed 8-1 against Munich’s traditional club in the last game of the season – and thus removed the last doubts about staying in the league. Iphitos, on the other hand, still has to tremble. “We had the ambition to keep the class reasonable,” says Iphitos head coach Ulrich Sprenglewski, but three permanent injuries could hardly be compensated for, and the league is “riddled with foreign WTA players”.
In Aschheim, value is placed on the fact that the squad does not only come together for the games
Last Friday, Iphitos got their first win of the season, 5:4 in the other Munich derby, at GW Luitpoldpark. The hosts had long been safe in the middle of the table, and Iphitos moved up to the penultimate place with the win. Heidelberg is now safely relegated – and the MTTC must hope that no two first division teams are relegated to the southern group. It looks good that all three Munich clubs are staying in.
This is remarkable for newcomer Aschheim. The promotion last year was unplanned, “after the first wins, the players got a taste for it,” Mircea Paar recalls with a smile. Laura-Ioana Paar and Laura Putz won the decisive doubles game with a score of 4:4 against Augsburg against two strong Czechs, and then, after some reflection, the club decided to venture into the second league – with a largely unchanged squad. Although Laura-Ioana Paar has Romanian citizenship, she is Mircea’s daughter-in-law and has been with TC Aschheim for years; Laura Putz has already played in the small field at the TCA. It is also important to the club that the few foreign players do not only come on match days, but also train longer on the facility. A unique selling proposition in the league.
Mircea Paar believes that Laura Putz has what it takes to be a professional, but she wants to play at a US college after graduating from high school. Anja Wildgruber knows Putz from many duels when she was young, “I won most of them,” she says. This season was different. Wildgruber only had one single win (the important one against Luitpoldpark), which she attributed to the strength of the opponents; her trainer Sprenglewski was not dissatisfied with her either. All the more remarkable was Putz’ record. In a direct duel, Wildgruber also found that the younger “made no mistakes”. Trainer Paar praises their variability, strong nerves – and the courage to take their fate into their own hands and try something, even in critical moments. He thinks the college thing is a good idea. You can also try the rocky professional business after you graduate.
