Serbia’s HTT superstar Vladimir Vukicevic scored early at the clay court opening of the hobby tennis…
Serbia’s HTT superstar Vladimir Vukicevic failed early at the clay court opening of the hobby tennis tour and thus started the season on red ash anything but as desired. The 36-year-old from Sombor has surprisingly already been eliminated in the quarter-finals of the April HTT-500 tournament and is already looking for his form after the first sand court tournament of the year. The top seeded runner-up had to admit defeat to Matthias Haubner 1:6, 2:6 a round later after his hard won work against outsider Ingemar Radosztics in the round of the round of 16, and complains about his defeat at the HTT-Australian Open and yesterday’s quarter-finals.o the worst start of his HTT career season. The classic clay court on the Altmannsdorf branch, which is already on the program for the 27th time, is in the semifinals standing, yet with a high quality cast. So great tennis for the two final tournament days is guaranteed. C.L reports from the UTC La Ville
The 15-time HTT tournament winner Vladimir Vukicevic made a false start to the 2018 clay court season at the 27th edition of the April HTT-500 tournament at UTC La Ville, and after six individual victories in a row at the classic clay court opening the season, left the court once again as the loser. It only took just over an hour until the April HTT 500 Champion of 2014 and 2016 had to give in to a more than solid playing Matthias Haubner, deservedly beaten also in this height, and thus had to bury the hope for his third April HTT 500 title. Vukicevic played at his first tournament start in 2018 in the open air and on red ash far below normal form, extremely flawed, and – at least for the moment – not competitive when it comes to the big titles of the upcoming clay court season. Haubner had a solid position to secure his place in the semi-final with 6:1, 6:2 for the duel with the HTT-Australian Open winner of 2015 Bernhard Scheidl. Vukicevic, on the other hand, must console himself this weekend with his 170th HTT career individual victory in the round of 16 against Ingemar Radosztics, who leads 4:1 in the first set.
In the semifinal Vukicevic-conqueror Matthias Haubner has to deal with Bernhard Scheidl, who is gaining momentum. Yesterday, under the strain of four hard-fought sets close to the 30 degree mark in the round of 16, the Burgenland-based young star Nico Mucic and a lap later sand court specialist Andreas Szabados cleared the way and is already in the third semifinal of the season after his 15th individual victory in 2018. The second semi-final duel at the 25th season’s tournament will be contested by Jaros-beater Michael Baswald of TC Blau Weiss and the number 2 seeded November Masters Series 1000 winner Kevin Köck. On another early summer’s day at the UTC La Ville, Baswald impressed both Simon Rieger in the round of 16 and Dominik Jaros in the quarter-finals, and entered his first HTT semi-final without losing a set. In the fight for his possible final debut, the 32-year-old will meet Kevin Köck on Monday afternoon. After a modest start to the season with the low point of the March Masters Series 1000 tournament, he seems to have scratched the curve and qualified for a semi-final for the first time since the HTT Tour finals and for the first time this season. But only today’s meeting with Michael Baswald will show how good the 20 year old WAT-Landstrasse star really is, as Gerhard Kropik and Paul Henke were not able to endanger the fifth place in the ranking of the hobby tennis tour despite their appealing performances.
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