Dominic Thiem, Alexander Zverev and their Russian colleagues Karen Khachanov and Andrey Rublev caused a sensation on Vienna’s Stephansplatz with an unannounced double.
On Saturday, the ATP-500 tournament kicked off in the Wiener Stadthalle. First, four youngsters of the ATP World Tour stormed Vienna’s Stephansplatz for a round of unannounced street tennis. At noon, the main draw for the tennis classic, endowed with 2,621,850 euros, was drawn at the Viennese Grand Hotel.
Shortly after 11.00 a white Mercedes-Benz G500 braked itself in a side street of the Viennese Stephanplatz. The shooting stars Dominic Thiem (AUT), Alexander Zverev (GER), Andrey Rublev and Karen Khachanov (both RUS) jumped out – “armed” with tennis rackets, balls and an official ATP tennis net.
Only a few moments later, to the amazement of hundreds of passers-by, a net was set up on the full Stephansplatz and the four stars of the ATP 500 Vienna were in a short double duel. When the police finally showed up, the show was already over. The net was rolled up, balls were packed away and the car drove from the Grand Hotel to the main draw.
The surprised and enthusiastic audience had been able to take a look at the future of tennis in an unusual setting: Zverev, Rublev and Khachanov are number 1 to 3 in the “Emirates ATP Race to Milan”, the ranking of the U21 players. Thiem, at the age of 24, is also one of the “young savages” of the ATP World Tour. The Lower Austrian has already reached the quarter-finals in Austria’s capital – just like Khachanov. For Zverev and Rublev it is their debut in the main field of the Millionaire Tournament in Vienna’s Stadthalle.
Zverev was enthusiastic about the spontaneous action:”Stephansplatz is fantastic. Local hero Dominic Thiem came across a similar horn:” I love to play in front of my home crowd. It was cool to do this action with my buddies in Vienna.”
Thiem and Zverev acted as “Glücksengerl”(lucky angels) during the subsequent draw at the Viennese Grand Hotel. Thiem would have liked to have had a lighter opponent at the start: He will meet on “THIEMstag”, 24. October 2017, on Street tennis partner Rublev of all people, currently the number 35 in the world. This pairing alone shows how high class the field of the Stadthallen-Tournament is occupied this year.
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