The winners of the last two years at the big season final of the Top 8, HTT-US-Open-Champion Vladimi…
The winners of the last two years at the big season final of the Top 8, HTT-US Open Champion Vladimir Vukicevic and the number 1 seeded defending champion Lukas Prüger started on Sunday afternoon with different performances and one victory each at the start of Group A of the 29th HTT-Tour-Finals 2018 at UTC La Ville. While last year’s winner Lukas Prüger extended his impressive winning streak on Masters level in a new edition of last year’s final against Matthias Wolf with a clear 6:4, 6:0 success, the HTT Tour Final Champion of 2016 Vladimir Vukicevic struggled in the final match of the second matchday against final debutant Andreas Szabados to a hard-fought 7:6, 6:4 work victory. From the UTC La Ville reported for hobbytennistour.at C.L
Lukas Prüger entered the stage of the HTT Tour finals early Sunday afternoon as he left it a year ago in the final of the 2017 edition. With a full success on the center court of UTC La Ville, and with a victory over Matthias Wolf, whom he had defeated 358 days before in the final of the HTT-Tour-Finals 2017 with 6:4, 6:2. This time the spell lasted just 66 minutes before Prüger finally took over the role of Wolf’s fear opponent with his sixth victory in the sixth direct duel. At the Tour Finals at UTC La Ville alone, Prüger and Wolf have already met three times, but the sixth ranked SKVS Flötzersteig would have no objection to a fourth meeting at the highest level. And how to deal with an opening defeat, how to get back on track after a damper at the start and finally even into the final, Matthias Wolf has known that since his furious appearance last year. How ever the 30 year old connects very special memories and a special relationship with the tour finals and the person Lukas Prüger.
At the showdown of the best HTT players at the UTC La Ville at the end of 2017, Matthias Wolf’s star was on the hobby tennis tour. Until then, the likeable Viennese was regarded as a technically limited top ten player, who had conquered his points and the resulting participation in the Masters by playing a lot. At first glance, this doesn’t seem to go down very well with the big stars, but Wolf’s appearance in the HTT public was perfectly suited to the eight days of the 2017 finals. But most of all, and this was even more important, Wolf had played his way into the wide HTT community as a Masters newcomer with his last minute group victory over Alexander Schager, and above all with his epic semi-final triumph over Vladimir Vukicevic. From then on, the surprise man had become an established, serious and successful top ten player, who had won faith in himself and his tennis with this performance.
His second Tour Finals appearance in a row made Wolf clear this year with top results, with four seasonal titles, including his first success on Masters Series 1000 level and a grandiose 5,065 ranking points in one year. Wolf’s best HTT season was missing only the absolute crowning in form of the number 1 position, and there we are with the person Lukas Prüger and his opponent yesterday. Prüger and Wolf are currently separating almost 3000 points at the beginning of the season finale tournament. It’s hard to believe that the two HTT aces once separated only ridiculous 5 dots in this midsummer. A miscalculation at hobbytennistour.at had even falsely acclaimed Wolf as number 1 for one afternoon. But it wasn’t enough to jump to the throne, and since this narrowest of all decisions in the number 1 race in HTT history, Wolf has somehow lost his motivation in terms of top position in the HTT ranking. Wolf played only 2 more tournaments after the number 1 theater, with which he also travelled “only” more than number 6 to the HTT tour finals 2018 at the UTC La Ville.
And there it came just yesterday afternoon as mentioned to the new edition of the last year’s final against Lukas Prüger and at the beginning almost as expected to a solo show of the ranking first, who went away with two early breaks quickly to 3:0. Wolf could not hold on to his third service game, and at 1:4 from the SKVS Flötzersteig star’s point of view, one had to fear the worst for his duel with number 1. Nobody in the hall had any idea at that time that the 7-time winner of the season and big favourite for the title would take a really long break for the coming minutes. Actually, it was already a mega blackout with which Prüger had to fight there. 10 points in a row, lost two games to zero, and with four double mistakes became conspicuous, Wolf had approached 3:4, and even had a break point to 4:4, which he missed with a forehand error in actually favorable stroke position. Prüger led 5:3, Wolf came up to 4:5 with a result cosmetic, and moments later had to give up the first set despite 36:34 points won 4:6.
In the second set, Wolf was then no longer present on the pitch. His idea resembled a playful declaration of bankruptcy. In only 23 minutes it set the zero, no winner with 11 own errors, altogether only 9 points and an underground service ratio of 22 per cent “at the first”, with such statistichen basic data each player is written out against one like Lukas Prüger to the maximum punishment. “Funny: In the first set there was actually a lot inside, I had a bad start, despite the backlog I got a good start, but I could never close the bag. In the second set, I started an avalanche of mistakes, that was really catastrophic. But I say better now in the opening match against Prüger, where I wasn’t the favourite, than in the following important games”, Wolf analysed his defeat in the opening match soberly. At the same time, the last year’s finalist also showed himself to be combative and optimistic, as in the previous year to be able to have a say on the promotion and title despite the bankruptcy of the start. “I have to win my next match on Tuesday, no matter who’s coming as an opponent, and then we have a showdown on Thursday where I can bring in my experience from last year. I’ll then be very focused and strong in my nerves, I’m sure of that,” said the 30-year-old, “while his opponent was able to rejoice over his sixth individual victory in the Tour Finals in a row and the 12th game in a row without defeat on the HTT overall. Prüger also celebrated his 49th victory in 2018, setting the second best mark of the Open era that Claus Lippert once achieved in 1999, even a record for eternity, before Damian Roman, in his 2016 super season, improved that record to an incredible and grandiose 61 victories.