HTT-First Bank Open 500 with record number of participants and first sensation

The 5th edition of the HTT-Erste Bank Open has given Austria’s largest popular sports tennis series a new re…

The 5th edition of the HTT-Erste Bank Open has brought Austria’s biggest popular tennis series a new record result. With 244 participants from 21 different nations, the HTT players once again underscored the red-white-red exceptional position of the Hobby Tennis Tour in the tournament sector. The top event, which will last 11 days and culminate in the two finals in the Vienna Stadthalle, has not only seen more than 140 matches over the past weekend, but has also already had a few surprises to report. From the UTC La Ville reported for hobbytennistour.at C.L

The competition for the successors of Lukas Prüger and Wenzel Graski as HTT-Stadthallen-Champions, which was very well attended both quantitatively and qualitatively, was fully ignited last Friday and set off with two remarkable records. With the exception of Martin Zehetner, the injured tenth in the rankings, the complete top ten elite led by defending champion Lukas Prüger will be represented at the HTT First Bank Open 500. In addition to the first rankings, Markus Neuhauser, Bernhard Scheidl and Vladimir Vukicevic are three of the four Grand Slam winners of the season at the start, whereby one has to write rightly of “were at the start”.

Because already on the third matchday of the 433rd indoor tournament of the HTT history, there was a big sensation. Italian-flagged Marco Vanella, currently number 280 in the HTT Computer Ranking, celebrated a much admired and highly acclaimed three-set success against an apparently out of form reigning HTT Australian Open winner Markus Neuhauser, and after his second victory at this year’s HTT First Bank Open 500 is now in the third main competition round. The 21-year-old, who so far only had two second-class HTT 500 tournaments in the last sixteen as his best career result, caught a dream day in the third set and threw the high favourite out of the competition with a lot of risk and aggressiveness. “I am of course very surprised about the outcome of this match and on top of that happy. Now I’ve seen that I can also stand up to such good people,” the winner cheered, while Markus Neuhauser’s HTT First Bank Open 500 premiere turned into a nightmare. With his second HTT career defeat, Neuhauser loses 10 points for his early end in the Race to La Ville. Now the 24-year-old needs an absolute super finish at the three remaining seasonal tournaments.

The Erste Bank Open Challenger remains the biggest single tournament of the entire HTT Circuit. With only 75 points for the winner, the Challenger Major Event has once again improved its participant record set four years ago with 121 participants this year, and with 133 entries is now quite comfortably leading the list of the biggest HTT individual events of all time.