The finals of the 27th HTT French Open will take place on Thursday evening in Romania – so far…
The final of the 27th HTT French Open will be played on Thursday evening by Romania’s young star Eric Adochitei and the last remaining player in the tournament of the strong army TC delegation Christoph Niedhart, two players who hardly anyone expected in the run-up to the strongest HTT single tournament of all time. The generation duel in the final HTT French Open Showdown 2018 made the two HTT stars perfect with crystal-clear and sovereign performances in the semi-final. First Adochitei declassified the current HTT-Australian Open finalist Philipp Jahn in less than an hour with 6:1, 6:1, before Christoph Niedhart won the semifinal club duel of the Army-TC-Stars against Prüger-conqueror Dominik Negrin with 6:4, 6:3. With the two major final debutants, it is already clear before the first serve of the 106th HTT Grand Slam Final of the Open era that there will be a new Grand Slam champion, the 45th in HTT history. From the UTC La Ville reported for hobbytennistour.at C.L
Romania’s young star Eric Tudor Adochitei Pandelea was the first player to enter the final of the 27th edition of the HTT French Open on Tuesday afternoon, without losing a set. The 18-year-old declassified a physically overstrained and tired Philipp Jahn in only 55 minutes 6:1, 6:1, and celebrated the clearest victory of an HTT player in the semi-final of the HTT-French Open since Peter Klager in 2015, who beat Martin Zehetner 6:1, 6:0 three years ago. The 55 minutes at the centre court of UTC La Ville were without tension, without a climax and in the end very disappointing, which the spectators were given on Tuesday evening in humid external conditions. And of course, this was not due to the winner, who once again gave an impressive performance – and for the first time before the eyes of his coach – another taste of his talent and ability. 79 percent of the first serves left Jahn hardly any time to breathe during the return, 76 percent of the points went to the young Romanian, who was on a very high level after the first service with 25 winners and only 14 unforced mistakes.
On the other side of the net, however, stood a young man who was physically and mentally unable to stand up to the “Shapovalov copy”, which was once again bombastic. The 26-year-old from the CTP Pötzleinsdorf was doomed by his quarter-final thriller against Bernd Steiner the evening before. Only 18 hours after his 180-minute fight, the reigning HTT-Australian Open finalist, with his heavy legs and empty head, was out of breath. And so the new edition of the first-round duel at last year’s September Masters Series 1000 tournament – which ended with a 7:5, 6:2 victory for Jahn – became the solo show Adochiteis. After 20 minutes, a much too passive Jahn was already trailing 0:5. There was a short flare-up from the point of view of the number 10 seeded Wieners, when he aggressively fixed his honour game to 1:5, and shortly afterwards even found a break chance to 2:5. But Adochitei did his thing mercilessly, and after 29 minutes he had impressively set course for the third HTT career finale.
The game was already decided, because Jahn not only lacked the physical and playful means, but also the belief in a turning point. Jahn’s attempts to bid a respectful farewell to the tournament seemed helpless. Adochitei remained uncompromising, untouchable with his own serve, and already made a statement to the final opponent who had not been determined at that time. After a quarter of an hour it was already 4:0, before Jahn came to his honor game this time. After that, however, the 26-year-old had only two points to go before he made a sad final point behind his second HTT Grand Slam semi-final with his fourth double mistake. One that will hardly remain in his memory in view of the following statistical facts. 25 unforced errors, none of his two break chances used, only 18% points won if he had to serve the second time, so the only consolation is that Jahn will be among the top ten for the first time in his career in the latest edition of the HTT computer ranking.