ATP: Struff impresses with impact against Haider-Maurer

At the ATP tournament in Dubai Jan-Lennard Struff has mastered the opening goals of Andreas Haider-Maurer with ease. Above all, a strong serve helped the 27-year-old to a safe opening victory.

From Jörg Allmeroth from Dubai

With a score of 2:6 and 0:2 Andreas Haider-Maurer simply had enough:”He hits every ball today,”the Austrian shouted out his despair at Court 1. Until then, Haider-Maurer was indeed right: his opponent Jan-Lennard Struff managed almost everything, whether it was a series of aces or solid wins from the baseline.

Struff’s superiority in the final phase was not as clear as it was, but there was no reason to shake a clear, highly deserved 6-2,6-4 win at the Dubai Duty Free Championships. While Haider-Maurer, thanks to Protected Ranking in the main draw, lost his fifth game of the season in the fifth round, Warsteiner Struff, who made it into the round of sixteen, may well still stand a chance of further tennis bets on the multi-million dollar Golf.

In the next round, he will initially face either the eight seeded Japanese Yuichi Sugita or the Belarusian Ilja Ivashka. In the quarter-finals, the young Russian Karen Khachanov or Lucas Pouille (France) would be conceivable as opponents.

Struff convinced above all with the precision and sovereignty of his serve. In only 57 minutes of play, he drummed 13 aces into the opponent’s field, with the first service he achieved a win rate of 92 percent. Struff, currently number 56 in the world rankings, is only playing for the second time in the metropolis on the Arabian Gulf; last year he had failed in the opening round at the Romanian Marius Copil.

On this Tuesday, a second game with German participation is on the agenda. In the last Centre Court match, qualifier Yannick Maden will face Damir Dzumhur (Bosnia-Herzegovina), who is seeded number four, in the final Centre Court match.