Lukas Prüger after quarter-final out with interesting insights

Last year’s dominance of HTT superstar Lukas Prüger seems to have been broken! The 20 year old rankings…

Last year’s dominance of HTT superstar Lukas Prüger seems to have been broken! The 20-year-old first in the rankings – last year’s winner of a total of seven tournaments and 31 matches unbeaten in a row – is not yet really getting going in 2018. For the first time since the March Masters Series 1000 tournament in 2017 and after 12 tournaments in a row, the young star of the Schwechater TC had to admit defeat again before the semifinals. Complaints with the elbow, no preparation worth mentioning and the general expectations, the HTT industry primus spoke after his quarter-final out at the HTT French Open in the final PK plain language. A report from C.L

After a mixed performance and a not undeserved defeat in the quarter-finals against Dominik Negrin, Lukas Prüger, who dominated the 2017 HTT Grand Slam Tournament of the year, is only a spectator at the title ceremony for the 27th HTT French Open title at UTC La Ville. After 61 unforced mistakes in the quarter-finals, set points to defend against the number 246 of the HTT-Computer-Ranking and his start in round 2 against Andreas Szabados, Prüger gave a press conference to say goodbye to the HTT-French-Open and there interesting and also self-critical insights into his current situation.

“After the match and the defeat, I don’t give a damn about any unsuccessful series of victories. What bothers me and what I don’t understand is the performance I gave in the first movement. The pain in the elbow shouldn’t be an excuse, it’s just a fact. But how I acted in the first sentence was a disgrace. No bullets, whining, that’s what’s bothering me the most right now. At least I pulled myself together in the second set, in my opinion I tended to be even the better player. Unfortunately, at 3-1 in the second set, I had a short slack, and that probably cost me the match in the end.

Commenting on the lack of form, Prüger said: “That’s true of course, I’m not in the form and constitution of the last year. But when I get it right, I’m actually playing tennis better than last year. Unfortunately, I rarely open it. I was sick for two weeks in the clay court season and generally played less. From the fitness point of view I feel top fit, only playing tennis doesn’t work out as well as desired at the moment. But it’s also difficult. I won everything last year, then everyone else expects you to win everything and everywhere again, and above all the expectation of yourself increases. If a match doesn’t get off to a good start, it immediately becomes a cramp. At the moment I certainly lack the necessary self-confidence. Many factors play a role, even in addition to one’s own expectations. You know you can play for the title in any tournament, but it’s also because of the general expectations. Last year I practically rose from the dead. Everybody knew I could play tennis, but I was never constant enough. It all worked out for me for a while, and everyone thinks the examiner is going to play in every tournament for the final. But that’s not so easy, especially since the quality of the individual tournaments has also increased tremendously.

“First of all, I’m gonna make sure I can fix this elbow. Playing with pain is no fun. After that, I’ll just play tournaments that give me a good time. Stay fit, get in shape, and let’s see if I’m number 1 again at the end of the year. This is not the primary goal, but it would be nice,” Prüger stressed.