The ÖTV contract player is following in the footsteps of Dominic Thiem and Alexander Peya.
He is already number one in the youth world rankings, but now Joel Schwärzler should also arrive in adult tennis. The 18-year-old stormed into an international men’s singles final for the first time at this week’s ITF M15 clay court event in Antalya. The young man from Vorarlberg (ATP 1061) remained without losing a set in his fourth match and brought second-seeded Romanian Sebastian Gima (ATP 454) to his knees in the semi-finals on Saturday morning after CET with 7:5, 6:1. In doing so, he took revenge for the 6:3, 4:6, 1:6 defeat in the only duel between the two so far in November 2023 in Heraklion on the Greek island of Crete. The ÖTV contract player, who is personally looked after on site by ÖTV sports director and Davis Cup captain Jürgen Melzer, will fight for his first professional singles title on Sunday against the top seeded Romanian Filip Cristian Jianu (ATP 311) – or against him Italian qualifier Mariano Tammaro (ATP 989).
Youngest Austrian title holder since July 1998?
Schwärzler reached his first and so far only men’s semi-final a year and a week ago, also in Antalya. He was now able to top this in a confident manner in the popular Turkish holiday region. After his fourth ITF doubles trophy last week at the same venue, the Harder is playing just as well in the singles this week. At the start, Schwärzler defeated the third-ranked Russian Denis Klok (ATP 503) 6:3, 6:3 – the subsequent successes against the Italian qualifier Francesco Ferrari (ATP 1174) and the German Justin Engel (ATP 1361), also via junior reserve Place in the main competition was even clearer with 6:2, 6:0 and 6:1, 6:0. He lost against Ferrari in the quarterfinals last week 4:6, 6:3, 1:6.
Only against Gima was he more challenged, at least in the first set, chasing an early break for a long time, but ultimately turned a 3:5 into a 7:5. At 5:4 and 40:15 for Gima, he fended off two set points on the opponent’s serve, one without his intervention due to a double fault. If Schwärzler prevails again on Sunday, at the age of 18 years, 57 days, he would be the youngest Austrian men’s title winner since the ex-ATP top 100 man and doubles world-class player Alexander Peya in July 1998. In addition, he could He will become the first 18-year-old red-white-red men’s winner since none other than Dominic Thiem in May 2012. The same applies to Sebastian Sorger, who is fighting for a place in the final at another ITF M15 tournament in Opatija on Saturday.
ÖTV colleague Perelygina also shows
However, Schwärzler is not the only ÖTV ace who made positive headlines in Antalya. At the ITF W15 event taking place at the same time, neo-Austrian Ekaterina Perelygina recorded her first two WTA points and reached the quarter-finals with strong performances. The ÖTV contract player recently made her way into the top 40 in the youth world rankings for the first time at the prestigious Banana Bowl in Blumenau (Brazil), a top-class ITF J500 event, through the singles quarter-finals and doubles semi-finals. In Turkey, where, like Schwärzler, she was directly in the main field via a junior reserved place, she seamlessly continued her rising form. The 17-year-old immediately defeated number 509 in the world rankings with a 2:6, 6:1, 6:2 over the fifth-seeded local hero Ilay Yörük and then went on to win 6:2, 6:1 against the Czech wildcard player Karolina Vlckova ( WTA -) on it. It was only against the previous week’s winner, the Bulgarian Denislava Glushkova (WTA 729), that they finally lost 2:6, 2:6.
2024-03-23 10:12:05
#ÖTV #ITF #Antalya #Schwärzler #reaches #mens #singles #final
