Does TC BW Neuss’ weakness in the champions tie-break cost them to stay in the class? In the 4-2 defeat in a duel with newcomer FTC Palmengarten, the blue-whites gave up two singles and the decisive doubles in the third set, played with a single count of up to ten. The record champions have lost seven of their nine match tiebreaks so far this season.
Geoffrey Blancaneaux in second place provided the perfect template for a successful away trip with his 6-1 and 6-2 victory over Romanian Nicholas David Ionel. “Geoffrey is just a bank,” team leader Clinton Thomson praised the Frenchman. “He completely wrecked his opponent, sensational.” The 24-year-old didn’t let a 100-minute rain stop irritate him. His compatriot Harold Mayot, who took fourth place ahead of the battle-hardened Spaniard Javier Barranco Cosano, who also traveled with him, disappointed with his two-set defeat (5:7, 2:6) against the Argentinian, who was 183 places below him in the world rankings Facundo Mena. Still mentally stricken by his defeat in the round of 16 against Adrian Andree on Wednesday at the Zug Open in Switzerland, “he was completely off track,” said Thomson, who saw himself challenged on the bench primarily as a mental coach. “Maybe we should have put Javier on the four,” he mused.
However, he didn’t just want to blame his protégé’s damaged nerves for the unplanned defeat. “Mena, although he had actually already ended his career, played great, always served his serves to the line.” From the guests’ point of view, Raul Brancaccio almost caused a big surprise. The Spaniard forced top 50 professional Pedro Cachin into the Champions tiebreak after winning the second round 7:5, leading 3:1, 4:2, 5:4 and 6:5, only to finally go with it 7:10 to lose. A look at the travel activities of their top player shows how seriously the hosts took this match: Although he is playing in the round of 16 at the Austrian Open in Kitzbühel on Wednesday, Cachin traveled from the elegant winter sports resort between two training sessions to visit the Bundesliga team of the promoted team support. “It shows what a good team spirit they have,” Thomson said without envy. However, he did not think it was good that the purely Argentinian match between Camilo Ugo Carabelli (ATP rank 183) and Juan Pablo Ficovich (292) went to Palmengarten. The debutant in the blue and white jersey won the first set 6:4, but lost the second round 5:7 on his own serve. The sticking point for Thomson was the sequence at the intermediate score of 4: 4, when Carabelli missed three breakballs in a 40: 0 lead. “He was the better player, his opponent didn’t play any winners, they just brought the balls back and waited for mistakes.” The Neusser produced too many of those. At least he showed morale, made up for a deficit of 0:6 in the Champions tie-break, but made a bitter double fault at 9:9. He then gave up his second serve, so Ficovich was able to use his first match point to win shortly afterwards.
The 50 or so fans from Neuss who had traveled with them then saw how Blancaneaux/Mayot won the doubles match against Cachin/Gomez-Herrera 6:3 and 6:3. Brancaccio/Barranco fell behind 0:5 in the match tiebreak against Ficovich/Mena, equalized to 9:9 and in the end, after the 9:11 defeat, caused frustration despite a strong performance. Thomson, however, remains positive: “The belief in the boys is there, everyone has their hearts in the right place.”
2023-07-30 19:05:00
#Neuss #defeated #thriller #FTC #Palmengarten
