Schager finally in the Hall of Fame of HTT after 24,300 travel kilometres

After 30 tournament participations, 98 completed matches and 24,300 kilometres of travel to and from the tournament, the best…

After 30 tournament participations, 98 matches and 24,300 kilometres of travel, the Styrian HTT export number 1 Alexander Schager managed to jump into the glorious “Hall of Fame” of the Hobby Tennis Tour yesterday evening. The 22 year old from Leoben, the top seeded 22 year old from Leoben, won the final of the 26th World Cup on All Souls’ Day in 2017. After 2:02 hours of play, Matthias Wolf won the 30th edition of the October HTT-500 tournament against Matthias Wolf, ranked No. 2, with 4:6,6:2,6:3, and cheered for himself at his 30th birthday. Career tournament start over the long awaited and long deserved first HTT title win of his career. After an intensive and over long distances quite high-class exchange of blows, Schager advanced to a total of 438. Winner of the HTT Open era, he advanced with 500 points for the won premiere title past his rivals Mathias Wagner, Christoph Beutler and Philipp Schneider to 7th place in the Race to La Ville. This means that the last year’s Styrian finalist’s chances of a second participation in the 25th round of the tournament are good. November to 2. The HTT Tour finals taking place at the UTC La Ville on December 12th are more than intact. In the meantime, after missing his third HTT career title, Matthias Wolf, the defeated finalist, has to console himself with a new career-high ranking after his fifth final. The 29-year-old is among the top 5 for the first time in today’s new edition of the HTT Entry List. A report by C. L.

After last losing 5 finals in a row and a HTT season that has been rather mixed since the summer, Alexander Schager has finally made it into the elitist circle of HTT tournament winners on the evening of yesterday’s Allerseelen holiday. The 22-year-old Styrian crowned his 10th birthday. Start of the season and his 30th birthday. Take part in one of the highly decorated HTT single events with a great performance and the first tournament victory on Austria’s largest and most important amateur tennis series, which has been long awaited in the “Green Mark”. However, Schager had to fight hard before he broke the resistance of a rival who had played at least as well for a long time, and had secured his third victory in the third direct duel with Matthias Wolf. From the point of view of the ranking list fourth, it started according to plan. Twice the forehand was pressed off as a winner, set an ingenious stop ball and Schager had his slight favourite role in this 111th round with a break. season finale. Wolf was fully motivated and highly focused that evening, especially in the first leg, and responded with the prompt re-break to 1:1. In the following Schager became Chancentod, more precisely to the “Break-Chancentod”. The Styrian, who was ranked No. 1, left no less than 12 break possibilities unused in the following two games, and in the return game for Wolf’s 4:1, Wolf’s haggard hit nine serious opportunities for a break in a single game. However, Matthias Wolf, who played extremely well from the baseline and delivered a brilliant performance on the defensive, pulled away 5-2 before Schager made the first set with a second break to 4-5. However, the 22-year-old played a decisive 5:5 equaliser, and Matthias Wolf won the 1:0 lead in the final of the 26th round after exactly 45 minutes with a score of 6:4. October HTT 500 tournament.

Like in the first set, Schager started furiously and with an early break, and again the deficiently beating Obersteirer immediately collected the re-break for 1:1. The turnaround in this centenary finale of the 400th anniversary of the In the second half of the HTT’s history, Wolf could have delivered the fourth game of the second set, when Wolf found three break chances at 0:40 in a 6:4,2:1 lead, and none of them were able to make use of any of them. Against a superbly serving hunter, no herbs were able to cope in this delicate phase, not even with Breakball number 4, which the man from Styria equalled with a forehand winner. After that, the second set first overturned, in which Wolf missed a match ball for 3:2 with a double error on his own serve, before his opponent, with four more games won in series and the equalisation of the set after another 40 minutes, takes his position in the direction of the premiere title.

In the all-important third heat, Wolf can compensate for an early break to the 0:1 with the re-break to 2:2, but in the following, however, the uninhibited mistakes at the July HTTT-500 champion of Flötzersteig, and thus also the chances of Schager’s first HTT career title, increased. The 22-year-old rebounded in the following game, scoring a second break 3:2 and carrying it to the end of the set. There at 5:3, Wolf was unable to stand up to the pressure to serve against the loss of the match, and after 2:02 hours of play and a backhand potted in the net, Alexander Schager’s first HTT title win was certain. 99:84 points were the end in favour of the winner in the match statistics of a long time eye level final showdown at the October HTT-500 tournament in 2017. Although Schager only took advantage of 8 of his 25 break chances, successfully completed only 7 of his 20 net attacks and produced 60 unforced errors, he ended up with 44 to 23 victories as the more aggressive and offensive player, the deserved champion and successor of the 3 times October HTT-500 winner Philipp Schneider.

Wolf played very well in the first set, while I missed a lot of chances. In the second set I had a bit more luck in one or the other situation, and then my opponent broke away a little bit, so that I could find my way into the match. It was a very close finale in which one or two points made the difference,”concluded the winner,” I’m kind of relieved because 29 times before I didn’t want to win the HTT. I hope that with this tournament victory, I’ve now managed to push the button,”said Schager with a smile. And Matthias Wolf, who lost out, was also satisfied with the results of the award ceremony:”We played a good match,” said the 29-year-old, who won his 15th round of the competition. The second season kick-off of the season reached its third final in 2017 and only just missed victory number 2 in the season. The ticket for the first-ever HTT tour finals at UTC La Ville is already in the new fifth rankings, and with the performance shown last night alone, Wolf would be a worthy candidate for one of the coveted starting places at the HTT season finale of the top 8 at UTC La Ville.