Season’s dominator Lukas Prüger and sensationalist Matthias Wolf compete on the second day of December 201….
On the second day of December 2017 (not before 4 p. m. LIVE on www.hobbytennistour.at) seasonal dominator Lukas Prüger and sensationalist Matthias Wolf will contest the final of the 28. 2nd edition of the HTT tour finals at UTC La Ville. The first of the two top ten stars to qualify for the final showdown at the big season finale of the Hobby Tennis Tour was Lukas Prüger. The winner of the HTT French Open, who was seeded to number 1, met Kevin Köck on Friday evening with a 6:4,6:3 victory in the duel of the two youngest tour finals participants against Kevin Köck, and was thus able to live up to his “light favorite role”, thus reaching the 7th place in his last 7 starts at the HTT. For the third time in a row the final. The new edition of the extremely high-class November Masters Series 1000 finale between the two young stars, which took place three weeks ago, did not quite live up to expectations, but the 77-minute semi-final act of the two Masters debutants was probably the last proof that the HTT’s top ten also saw a change of generation. A report by C. L.
On Friday evening, Lukas Prüger took revenge for the last defeat that ended his incredible series of 31 victories en suite in the final of the last HTT Masters Series 1000 season, in front of the eyes of his family. His conqueror at the time, 19-year-old Kevin Köck, however, was not able to advance to repeat offender yesterday evening, and had to accept the fourth defeat with 4:6,3:6 in his fifth direct duel with the HTT branch primus. Brawler won in his 85th birthday. Career match, fixed there the 11th. Final entry of his career and this afternoon he has the great chance to make an extraordinary season a fantastic one and to play his way up to the top of the HTT with the first Masters title. And just like his opponent in the final, Matthias Wolf, Prüger would only be the sixth player in history to make the master’s crown on his debut.
The first semi-finals at the centercourt of the UTC La Ville began curiously, as Köck took the lead 1:0 despite three fabricated double errors. Köck missed the small chance to steer the game in a different direction right from the start, as a backstroke with four unused break chances in the first game. The number 1 solved the Causa Breakballs better, and with the 2:1 the young star from Schwechater TC played away in this first set. Up to 4:3 the top seeded “Schwechater” transported this break, before he won the re-break with double error no. 4 to 4:4. As so often seen in these Tour Finals days, a break was not the decisive advantage. Rebound Ace, which was only released for the Erste Bank Open in October, is by far not as fast as last year’s Opti Court topping, and this year’s service is not as important. But Prüger fought back immediately, took Köck off his service for the second time, and in the next service game, after 41 minutes, made the first set 6:4 clear. The second round lasted six minutes shorter, Köck had to give up his serve twice to 1:2 and at the end to 3:6, and so after 77 minutes played he had to lay the dream of the Tour Finals final at the premiere performance ad acta. But there is no cause for sadness in the Köck camp. The 19-year-old can look back on a great season and, after his best year to date by far, drew a balance in the final press conference:
I deserved to lose today, simply because I didn’t make the important points and didn’t play away. If I wasn’t too compelling then the Lukas hit the balls around my ears. I was only able to react a little bit more, he really deserved to win,”Köck opened, who was asked three weeks ago about the difference between the lost Masters semifinals and the victorious final on HTT-1000 level:” At that time we both played better, the surface of course also plays a big role, because I think the floor here at the Centercourt is better suited to Lukas than the carpet, where the floor here at the Centercourt is better than the carpet. I was injured for a long time, came back this year with the 250er tournaments and was totally unfit. Then it went uphill relatively quickly. I didn’t lose a tournament before the quarter-finals, and now in the indoor season it went perfectly anyway. With the performances of the last six tournament participations I see myself even deserved in this strong field of tour finals participants “, said the Köck, who will also be happy about a new career-high ranking next Monday” This is to be in any case totally cool number 5 of the HTT. Especially with the density of good players. 2018 I have nothing to defend at all in the spring, and I hope it goes on like this in my game, and then my biggest wish would be to become number 1 of the HTT. An even bigger wish would of course be to win a Grand Slam tournament before that, and I think in the way I’ve presented myself in the last few months, that’s possible. I’m taking a break now and in January I will attack fully,”said the 19-year-old confidently,” I will remember everything from my tour finals debut. The ambience here is simply great. To play in such a place, with on-court interviews, press conference, good food, fog machine, commentator, live ticker, you don’t have that every day. I hope I can be back in 2018. On this way I would like to thank the organizer again. You can’t thank him enough, what he does here is unbelievable. This is even more awesome than playing in the town hall. That’s great, but he deserves an applause that would have to last for thousands of years,”was the praise of the new fifth ranked list for the tournament organization.
First of all, I have to say that it’s a bit of a pity that we both couldn’t show the level we were able to show two weeks ago. At that time this was a monster part and such a tour-finals-semifinal would have deserved to be played in any case. The start for both of us was fatal today. Actually, a little wonder of the world that we both managed to get our serve games through. I found a trace faster into the game, and that may have brought me victory at the end,”started the number 1 into the final PK. The improved service performance was also a topic at the end:”I only got one break, that’s all right. I am glad about my service performance today, which made things a lot easier for me. I’m looking forward to the final tomorrow because it’s so cool and a great honour to be able to play in such an atmosphere every day on this course. I will be highly motivated, play actively and aggressively, and if I succeed I should have a very good chance,”says the six-time season winner.
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