Three German players made it to the semi-finals of the ATP World Tour 250 tournament in Munich: Alexander Zverev, Philipp Kohlschreiber and Maximilian Marterer. Only Hyeon Chung could still be a party crasher.
By Jens Huiber from Munich
If you travel to the ATP tournament at MTTC Iphitos by car, it’s your own fault. However, every guest will then also pass an agricultural vehicle that urgently needs movement in the current week: Actually, since it is there to free vehicles stuck in the mud again, there is absolute peace at this front.
At the beginning of the quarter-final day it looked a little bit like rain, maybe that’s why Hyeon Chung didn’t lose any time to defeat Martin Klizan in the round of the last eight like last year. The South Korean would have doubled the size of his thighs in recent years, said the man Chung will play for the final on Saturday afternoon: Alexander Zverev.
He had delivered a sparkling clean performance against Jan-Lennard Struff – and still warmed up some games in the following meeting with the press, which didn’t go quite as well: Against Struff in Monte Carlo, he played without first serve (and still won). And last year’s match against Chung in Barcelona should not be forgotten.
Zverev lost this match as well as the planned revenge at the Australian Open at the beginning of this season. However, the Hamburg-born player is still at least at eye level on Saturday, rather than a slight favourite in the match between the two youngsters, which is due to the fact that the serve has returned. The first one.
Philipp Kohlschreiber will watch the match in peace, just as the three-time Munich Champion is generally calm himself. Why wouldn’t I be? With Ivo Karlovic, Mischa Zverev and on Friday Roberto Bautista Agut Kohlschreiber not only defeated but dominated three completely different opponents.
He did not want to make it quite clear that he had been the better player in all matches, Kohlschreiber said on Friday afternoon, but he could have done so calmly. This observation is well supported by facts. Especially as the service training on Thursday after the match against Zverev had borne fruit.
Maximilian Marterer was the last German to file a claim: The Franconian, who trains like Kohlschreiber at the TennisBase in Oberhaching, defeated Marton Fucsovics of Hungary in two sets, just like a few weeks ago in Miami. In the stable duel with the triple champion Kohlschreiber, Tortererer has nothing to lose. Especially since the same applies to the 22-year-old as to the tournament in general: the more sun, the better. For Saturday, temperatures above 20 degrees are announced.