Kevin Köck – coming out of the crisis straight to the finals of the 27th April HTT-500 tournament

WAT road star Kevin Köc, who is ranked No. 2, has been…

The number two seeded WAT Landstrasse star Kevin Köck and Vukicevic conqueror Matthias Haubner qualified in very different ways for the grand final of the April HTT 500 tournament at UTC La Ville on Monday afternoon. While November Masters Series 1000 Champion Kevin Köck struggled for over two and a half hours in the first semi-final at the sun-drenched centre court against Michael Baswald of TC Blau Weiss, before he finished third:6, 7:6, 6:4 success in his seventh HTT career final, Matthias Haubner stormed into the first final of his HTT career with his next edge victory. It took the 23-year-old from UTC Gedersdorf only 66 minutes to finish off Bernhard Scheidl, the 2015 HTT-Australian Open winner from Burgenland, 6:1, 6:2. The 25th season finale on Tuesday afternoon will be broadcast by hobbytennistour.at LIVE from 4 pm. C.L reports on the Altmannsdorf branch

Vukicevic conqueror Matthias Haubner has played his way into the final of the 27th edition of the April HTT-500 tournament at UTC La Ville in an outstanding manner. After only 1:06 hours of playing time, the 23-year-old from Lower Austria declassified an exhausted Bernhard Scheidl with 6:1, 6:2, and can grab his first HTT career title on Tuesday afternoon. The HTT-Australian Open quarter-finalist had far less difficulties with the Serve & Volley giant from Lake Neusiedl than he feared in advance. Only in the first game, which lasted 6 minutes and Scheidl revealed three break possibilities, Haubner seemed helpless and unplanned. After both players had passed their first service game with success, Haubner stormed towards a set win with five games won in series, while Scheidl had to pay tribute to his two Sunday appearances against young star Nico Mucic and sand court specialist Andreas Szabados at again high temperatures. The day before was exhausting when the 32-year-old saved himself over the distance in the second set of his quarter-final duel against Szabados with beginning cramps through the tie-break. 24 hours later, however, the batteries had not yet been refilled. “I lacked the liveliness to play my usual powerful Serve & Volley successfully. I couldn’t get out of shape on serve, and I was often far too slow on the net,” said the defeated Burgenlander, looking for reasons for his defeat after losing the second set 2:6. While Haubner increased his lead in the Head to Head against Scheidl to 2:0, the Burgenlander missed his third final at an HTT sand court tournament after Kitzbühel 2015 and Neusiedl 2016. Scheidl had three break chances in the first game and if he uses one of them it is 2-0 and the first set is really tight. This made the game a lot easier,” said the victorious Gedersdorfer with relief and satisfaction.

While Matthias Haubner made short work of Bernhard Scheidl in the second semi-final duel of the April HTT-500 tournament, his final challenger Kevin Köck had his hands full in the opening match of the semi-final day and had to work over two and a half hours to win Michael Baswald 3rd place:6, 7:6, 6:4 and to put his 7. HTT career final. In beautiful early summer weather and in a high-class game Baswald looked like the winner for a long time. The 32-year-old won the first set 6:2 with two successful breaks, and also made the second set completely open against the number 5 in the HTT computer ranking. The service continued until 4:4 before both players made the tie-break clear with four service losses in a row. There a concentrated Köck presented quickly with 4:0, and the 20-year-old of WAT Landstrasse finally used this cushion for set equalization. In the third round Köck left an early break for 2-0 unused, as the number 2 of the April HTT-500 tournament won the re-break for 2:1 by return. The decision in favour of Köck was made in the tenth and last game at the score of 5:4, when Baswald, on his own serve and under the pressure of having to hold it absolutely a little bit, and Köck opened the door to the final. The WAT Landstrasse star can therefore continue to hope for career title no. 3, while Michael Baswald, who was out of the race in the semi-finals, summed up his best HTT career tournament to date. “It was fun today. It was a great game with a fair opponent. Until the end, the match was even, and in the end, an Alzerl was missing. Köck played the last two games very well and in the end he deserved to win,” said the 32-year-old from TC Blau Weiss.