Advent time at the TU

With the return of our juniors from Norway, the 2019 season at the TU is now over. In the upcoming week some of our German professionals will go to the German National Championships in Biberach though, the rest of the players are currently at the base in Offenbach and are preparing for the new season. Our top players also returned to the Tennis-University in the last days. On Thursday Jonas Forejtek came back to Hesse for the first time after his US Open victory. Here he took some time for the children of our Junior Program. Together with coach Bastian Suwanprateep he made his way to the indoor courts at the Kempinski Hotel Gravenbruch to hit some balls together with the youngest talents. The boys and girls quickly lost their nervousness and gave their absolute best. Afterwards Jonas was available for questions and a collective chat. The kids were reassured that even a player like him would feel a certain nervousness before his matches and were able to get further advice from him and coach Basti.

It was a great get-together that will probably be repeated with other TU pros in the future. For the 11-15-year-olds, direct contact with their idols is a great motivation to continue working hard for their dream of becoming a professional tennis player.

In addition to Jonas Forejtek, many more of our pros have also gathered at the base over the past few days. With Ruben Bemelmans, Praj Gunneswaran and many others, more than 25 players are currently training daily on the courts of the Hessian Tennis Federation.

Only one face has been missed in the past few days. Tatsuma Ito was in Zhuhai, where he was No. 2 in the field at the Australian Open Asia-Pacific Wildcard Play-off tournament. After two three-set wins in the quarter and semi-finals, he met top seed Jason Jung from Taiwan in the final. Here, two sets were enough for the Japanese, with 7:5 6:4 he secured his second Australian Open main draw entry in a row. After the match, Tatsuma was obviously happy about his success: “I really enjoyed this moment. I moved through into the main draw after qualifying this year. It was very tough for me and my body. It will be easier next year,” said the smiling 31-year-old.

After this extremely successful year-end finish, Tatsuma has earned a few days off before returning to Tennis-University just before Christmas.

Of course this week again it’s worth taking a look at the Tennis-University Instagram page. In our advent calendar you have the chance to win great presents during the advent time. 

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