ATP: 50th birthday: Memories of Horst Skoff

He inspired, polarized – and somehow left no one cold, including his fans in Germany. Horst Skoff, one of Austria’s best tennis players, would have turned 50 today. Florian Goosmann remembers his time as a “Horsti” fan.

I’ve always had to defend myself. “You’re a Horst-Skoff fan? How’s that?” – that or something like that, the comments of my colleagues. In Germany, they were Boris Beckers.

How did I find Horsti? I was ten and Horsti played a show fight on TV – yes, even such games were broadcast at that time (but only because Becker had been out of action at short notice). What fascinated me about Horsti? His hair – I don’t know why. I was, as I said, only ten years old. The big matches, like the Vienna victory over Muster and the Davis Cup singles against Wilander (and Chang), I only noticed afterwards.

“Horsti” has inspired me in many ways. I emulated his forehand (with his arm stretched out), his serve (with his left foot pointing upwards), I suffered with him when he had a few kilos too much on his hips again and the world rankings were no longer so good. Place 18 was the maximum in January 1990. At the Davis Cup duel against Germany in 1994 I could not see the decision live because of my confirmation, the match against Marc-Kevin Goellner was still (noisy) on tape today. The commentary in the first movement, which Horsti won, I was able to join in during my heyday.

After Skoff almost disappeared from the scene, I was also feverish. Without Internet reliance on tennis magazines – unfortunately things really couldn’t move forward. He narrowly missed the qualification for the French Open 1997, “Happy Tennis” even speculated at that time, had he managed the last hurdle, he would even have reached the quarter-finals. Well.

His death almost exactly ten years ago shocked me – as did the circumstances that were never really clarified. “His former coach Günter Bresnik wrote in his book The Dominic-Thiem-Method that he had wanted to discuss “a big deal”. Anyway: The separation from Bresnik, who didn’t want to go along to the “Boulevard”-star Skoff – it perhaps prevented a great career. And maybe Skoff’s still alive. Anyway: If you want to get a real insight into the person Horst Skoff, you should get Bresnik’s book urgently. My tears came from reading it.

Today I remember my personal meeting with Horsti at a training ground during the Kitzbühel tournament in the early 1990s. With some boys I ran to the square in front of Skoff’s unit and asked for his autograph. “It’s not really possible that you just come in here,” Horsti said strictly at first. Then he gave me my autograph and smiled.