Youth Tennis Stars Shine in Skopje: Schwärzler and Oberleitner Make Waves on ATP Challenger Circuit

Neil Oberleitner also performs several times in Macedonia’s capital Skopje.

He has been number one in the youth world rankings since January 29th. And Joel Schwärzler also seems to be gaining a foothold surprisingly quickly among the adults. This week in Skopje, the 18-year-old is in the semifinals of an ATP Challenger for the first time. The Vorarlberg native (ATP 664), who reached the main event in the clay court event in category 75 via his junior reserved place, also defeated the Czech Andrew Paulson (ATP 328) in the quarterfinals after a hard fight with 3:6, 6:4, 6:4. In his match for his first final at this level, the ÖTV contract player will now face the 19-year-old South Korean Gerard Campana Lee (ATP 349) on Friday. Neil Oberleitner, meanwhile, narrowly missed his Challenger semifinal debut. The Viennese (ATP 636) lost in the quarterfinals of the qualifying duel with the American Ryan Seggerman (ATP 555) despite two match points with 6:2, 6:7 (5), 6:7 (6).

One point away from the first round exit – and now among the last 4

Schwärzler had only reached his first Challenger quarter-final in Tallahassee (USA) in mid-April, and repeated this success the week before last at his home game at the Danube Upper Austria Open powered by SKE in Mauthausen. And now he went one better in Macedonia’s capital. It could have been over for him in the first round: In the opening match against the Uzbek Sergey Fomin (ATP 664) he was 5:7, 2:5 behind and even fended off a high-risk match point at 3:5 before the qualifying final conqueror of Gerald Melzer (ATP 475) gave up with a double break at 5:7, 7:5 and 3:0. Although Harder did not shine at all, in the next round on Wednesday he gave his coach, ÖTV sports director and Davis Cup captain Jürgen Melzer, the best present for his 43rd birthday – with an even more convincing performance: He defeated the second-seeded Turk Ergi Kirkin (ATP 258) in the round of 16 with 6:2, 6:1.

In the match against Paulson, Schwärzler was already with his back against the wall when he served at 3:6, 4:4 and 15:40. But instead he broke in the next game and saved himself in the third set. This was on the verge of collapse right up until the end: he was unable to hold on to a break from the first game and found himself at 3:4 after a 3:1 lead, before he was able to break Paulson again at 4:4 after his 40:0 lead and two more match points and serve out. “I am of course very happy,” admitted Schwärzler, “especially after the first round, because I simply did not play well there, but somehow got over it, with a bit of luck. The last few weeks have been very positive, I am very happy with my level at the moment. I am pleased that I have already won several rounds on the Challenger Tour and have proven to myself that I can do it. Now I just have to show it consistently – that is a big goal. The shots were always at a good level.” With the 22 ATP points he has won so far, Schwärzler could find himself among the best 550 players in the world on Monday. Another win would even put him at around 470th place. “I’m motivated. It’s a good chance in the semifinals. Campana Lee is a good player, I’ve known him for a while, we also trained together in America. It will definitely be a cool match, I’ll do my best.”

Oberleitner with convincing tournament week at premiere

Oberleitner was also able to impress several times in Skopje. The 24-year-old first defeated the Bulgarian alternate Alexander Donski (ATP 955) 6:4, 6:3 in the qualification and the fifth-seeded Swiss Jerome Kym (ATP 470), who was a finalist at the ITF M15 tournament in Warmbad Villach on Saturday, 6:7 (3), 7:6 (4), 6:2. In the main draw, he then defeated the Slovenian alternate Bor Artnak (ATP 456) 6:4, 7:5 and the fifth-seeded Pole Maks Kasnikowski (ATP 265) 6:0, 7:6 (3), thus reaching a Challenger quarter-final for the first time. Despite a 111:105 win, Oberleitner unfortunately missed out on his first semi-final against Seggerman: in the second set he was only one point away from another victory at 5:4, and was also leading 3:1 in the tiebreak and 3:2 with a mini-break in the all-important tiebreak of the third set. There was no happy ending in either case, but Oberleitner will still move back significantly below the top 600 in the ATP rankings, to a place around 560.

2024-05-23 21:03:27
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