It is now almost exactly one year since Philipp Kohlschreiber had Andy Murray in Dubai on the verge of defeat. In the 2018 edition of the Golf Tournament, the native of Augsburg has a good chance of a longer campaign.
From Jörg Allmeroth from Dubai
When he left Dubai last year, the best game of his life lay behind him. But also the bitterest defeat of his life. Philipp Kohlschreiber gave away seven match points in the quarter-finals against the British Grandmaster and world number one Andy Murray, while the 34-year-old from Augsburg lost the second set of the 174-minute thriller in the tiebreak at 18:20.”The memories of the game are still somewhat ambivalent. Great pride, but also great disappointment,”says Kohlschreiber, a veteran of the Dubai Duty Free Championships,” I am still being asked about it all over Dubai.
2018 is the 26th. This is the ninth edition of the multi-million dollar game on the golf course, Kohlschreiber is already participating for the ninth time. His best result was the semi-finals in 2014, but his best performance was of course this legendary quarter-finals match against Murray in springtime air, at the tent stadium near the busy Al Maktoum Airport. Kohlschreiber has been on the spot since Thursday, together with his partner Lena Alberti and coach Markus Hipfl, he needs his acclimatisation time, says the Davis Cup player,”and you can also endure it quite well here”.
Kohlschreiber wants to stay a little longer in a tournament year that began quite calmly with a 6-4,6-2 win over French qualifier Greb Sakharov. The German did not waste too much energy in the afternoon heat of the winter, at about 26 degrees Celsius in full sun “This was very solid, very pleasing. I need a few more victories after the season so far,”said Kohlschreiber, who actually only won one match so far in 2018, in Rotterdam’s opening round against the Russian Karen Khachanov. Next opponent of Kohlschreiber is the young Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas.
The 34-year-old can certainly calculate his chances of taking part in the decisive phase of the competition, as the tournament is surprisingly lean for Dubai in this tournament. After seasons in which three of the Big Four players competed, only Grigor Dimitrow greets the top ten players from the big poster walls in the metropolis this year – a sharp contrast to last week’s women’s tournament.
Until recently, the organisers had hoped for a last-minute promise from Dubai part-time president Roger Federer, but the Swiss would now prefer to take the honorary round at the Laureus World Sports Awards in Monte Carlo, following his jump to first place in Rotterdam. It is still a very good field, says Kohlschreiber, number 6 of the seed list,”but of course you want to take advantage of your chances” If everything goes according to plan, the Augsburg player would meet the top seeded Dimitrow in the round of the last eight.
Kohlschreiber has long since recovered from his severe cold, which hindered him at the start of the year in Australia and also prevented his Davis Cup participation there. Now the international doesn’t want to impose himself on the squad for the quarter-finals in Spain, but he says:”If you ask me, I’ll be there. The conditions there in Valencia are actually ideal for me,” said Michael Kohlmann, the captain, his contact partner. However, he also had a conversation with Boris Becker in Rotterdam, said Kohlschreiber.
Meanwhile, Florian Mayer is the first of four German participants to be eliminated from the Dubai Duty Free Championships. The Spaniard Roberto Bautista-Agut from Bayreuth lost 3:6 and 4:6 to the Spaniard Roberto Bautista-Agut after a largely even match. In the second set, Mayer had fought his way back to 4-4 in the second set after a 2-4 deficit, but then the German made a decisive “vision mistake” in the ninth game.
Mayer interrupted a longer rally at the beginning of the match because he thought that a shot from Bautista-Agut had landed in the end. However, a check by Hawk-eye showed that the ball was good. After that, Mayer lost his service game and the match. On Tuesday Jan-Lennard Struff will play against the Austrian Andreas Haider-Maurer and qualifier Yannick Maden against Damir Dzumhur (Bosnia-Herzegovina). Former Davis Cup team boss Patrik Kühnen, who now lives in Dubai, was also a fence-goer at the tournament on Monday.