Title favourites easily skip their opening hurdles

Until the largest, most important and prestigious sand court tournament of the year with the 27th…

The biggest, most important and most prestigious sand court tournament of the year with the 27th edition of the HTT-French Open is still 25 days away, but the red ash on the Altmannsdorf branch is glowing brighter and hoter than it has been for years just one month before the first serve to the most traditional sand court classic of the HTT calendar. The reason for this are not only the summer temperatures in the middle of spring, but also the highly attractive and bombastic fields of participants in the “preparation tournaments”, which guarantee first-class and exciting tennis at UTC La Ville. Such a day was also offered to the spectators on the second day of yesterday’s May 23rd Masters Series 1000 tournament, where no less than four current and former Grand Slam winners attended the 640th clay court event of the Open era. C.L reports from the UTC La Ville

In the absence of the superior ranking first and HTT French Open champion Lukas Prüger, the stars of the scene took up the fight for the third Masters Series 1000 season title on Saturday. Last year’s finalist Adrian Vorhemus, who easily qualified for the quarter-finals of the Mai Masters Series 1000 tournament with a victorious double. The 16-year-old with his trademark “the double forehand” demonstrated his class with only six games against Vesely replacement Gerald Dominik and the comebacking Styrian Mayrhuber conqueror Manuel Trieb. If it goes after the paper form, Vorhemus will have to deal with the number 2 seeded AC Open finalist Matthias Wolf from Baden in the third round.

Last year’s semi-finalist Alexander Schager had some trouble on his way to the round of 16 of the Mai Masters Series 1000 tournament. The Styrian tennis export had to fight for just under two hours before defeating WAC qualifier Manuel Wachta in three sets 4:6, 6:2, 6:1 and finally living up to his clear favourite role. Wachta fought ambitiously and especially in the first set also playfully convincing, while Schager needed this very first set to get on his HTT sand court debut. The number 6 seeded October HTT-500 winner from Leoben will now face Carinthia’s underdog Herwig Ebner in the round of 16 and a “South Derby”.

Vladimir Vukicevic and Martin Mayer, who will cross the blades on the HTT for the first time on Sunday afternoon (not before 4 p.m.), will also be warmed up for the big winner of the round of 16 finals at the 23rd May Masters Series 1000 tournament. The two HTT superstars were each allowed to absolve the mentioned warm-up exercise with a qualifier on the two show courts of the UTC La Ville, whereby both the triple HTT Wimbledon champion and the Olympic gold medal of 2014 had a stutter start – naturally without consequences. Vukicevic had to make up a 1:3 deficit against Schöggl-conqueror Martin Prechtl in the first set, before he made it to the last sixteen with 6:3, 6:1 and thus also his 215th career singles on Sunday afternoon. There, all fans of the HTT can look forward to the first big thriller of the first weekend in May with the duel against March HTT 500 winner Martin Mayer, who emerged in the first third of the season with top performances from an interim sinking, and is in excellent fifth place in the “Race to La Ville” annual ranking. The eighth-final giant duel with Vukicevic fixed Mayer with a 6:3, 6:2 victory over qualifying winner Marcus Schischlik, who already had his personal highlight in his 101st HTT career tournament one lap before, when he could defeat his team mate from TC Strebersdorf Sebatsian Hickl for the first time in the third attempt.