With the victory at the 25th edition of the Sparkassen Open Yannick Hanfmann celebrates his biggest success on the tour so far. The 26-year-old German defeated the Slovak Jozef Kovalik 6-2, 3-6, 6-3 in a competitive final on Saturday.
In front of well-filled grandstands on the Center Court in Braunschweig with around 1,500 spectators, Hanfmann was the better player in the decisive situations. Three times Kovalik, who was born in Karlsruhe, was able to take off the serve and after two hours and two minutes he finally lost the match.
“I actually played three good sets with a small trailer in the second set,” Hanfmann was satisfied. “It was a very interesting match. In the first set I did my job very well and played out his weaknesses. It was like it was all in one pour.
“With my loss of serve at the beginning of the second set, the momentum then turned a little in his direction. But I always had the feeling that something would work on his second serve and that I would get my chances. That’s when it happened.”
Would Hanfmann have expected a tournament victory in the Lion City at the beginning of this week? “I probably wouldn’t have listened if someone had told me that on Monday,’ says the 26-year-old.
“I came here with pleasure and just wanted to look from match to match. I did a good job with my coach. “Now I’ve won the tournament and I don’t really know how that happened.”
In his previous appearances in Braunschweig, Hanfmann has never made it beyond the second round. After Jens Knippschild (1999), Florian Mayer (2013) and Alexander Zverev (2014), he is now the third German to be entered in the list of winners of the sand court tournament worth 127,000 euros.
“I always liked to drive up here,” says Hanfmann, who trains at the TennisBase in Oberhaching. “Sometime the sign with the name Hannover comes on the A5, where I went to school for one year. That was a good time and I like the north a lot. Brunswick is always associated with a good feeling. The tournament is excellently organized, the spectators are great. The only question is: Why isn’t this an ATP tournament? But okay.”
18,200 Euro prize money and 125 ATP ranking points are on top of the feeling of happiness. The latter will make Hanfmann appear in the world’s top 100 for the first time when the new world ranking list is published on Monday. As an encore there will be a starting place in the main field of this year’s US Open.
“I am of course happy that I managed to be in the top 100 for at least a week. If I continue on my way like this, maybe there will be even more,” says Hanfmann confidently.
Now it’s back to Munich, where a week of training at the TennisBase is scheduled. This is followed by the ATP tournaments in Gstaad and Kitzbühel, as well as the new ATP Challenger event in Pullach.