tournaments, practice and a new TU member

Last week, the TU pros and junior players were mainly successful on the clay courts of the world. After her trip to Thailand in January and February, Romy Kölzer now played in Europe for the first time this year. At the $15.000 ITF tournament in Greece, the German went into the tournament as fourth seeded player. She lived up to her seeding in the first two matches, in the second round Romy only lost one game against a Romanian qualifier. In the quarterfinals her Italian opponent, who was seeded eighth, could take one set from her. After losing the opening set, the 28-year-old fought back and entered the semi-finals with a 2-6 6-4 6-4. Here she once again faced an Italian opponent. Martina Spigarelli prevailed in three tight sets.
 Romy also had a long week in the doubles competition. At the side of Iona Gaspar she won the first two rounds without any problems. In the semi-finals, the decision was not made until the match tie-break, which the German/Romanian duo won 10-4 against Pachkaleva/Vlkovska. In the final, the second seeded doubles team from Italy was waiting. After winning the first set, Romy and her partner lost the thread a bit and as a consequence the match in the Champions Tiebreak.

At the Challenger in Cherbourg, Ruben Bemelmans got two victories on hard court under his belt, before the Belgian fell in the round of 16 to an excellently playing Mischa Zverev. Alongside German Dustin Brown, the 32-year-old made it to the round of the last four in doubles. The duo was already on the verge of being eliminated in the first round against the Frenchmen De Schepper/Gaston. But after losing the first set, the Germans managed to turn the match around and win the match tiebreak with 12-10. Against the Croatian sibling double Sabanov/Sabanov, who was seeded second, the Germans got a sovereign two-set win under their belt, before Added/Olivetti, another French double, ended the run of the two in the Matchtiebreak in the semi-final.

Also for some children of our junior program a tournament trip was scheduled for the weekend. This time the group stayed in their home region and made their way to the EAM Youth Cup in Northern Hesse. Here Max Obendorfer reached the final of the U12 Juniors with three strong wins. Lea Schrauzer could achieve the same number of victories in the U14 juniors. Due to the smaller draw, the player of TC Grün-Weiß Dingolfing even managed to win the tournament.

At the base in Offenbach there was a lot going on these days. Besides high-level training sessions of Karim Maamoun, Karlis Ozolins and Jule Niemeier, among others, the official debut of the Serbian talent Viktor Jovic at the TU could be celebrated. In December, the 18-year-old had trained for the first time during a trial week at the Tennis-University and as a result quickly decided on a long-term cooperation with the academy. After an injury-plagued year 2019, the former number 241 in the ITF Junior Ranking now wants to attack fully again. We are very happy to accompany Viktor on his way from now on and to support him in the best possible way!

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