Friday, September 03, 2021
“Do not know what to say”
Gojowczyk is amazed at his tennis miracle
He traveled to New York without a coach and came into the main draw with three qualifying wins. Now Peter Gojowczyk is causing a mighty surprise at the US Open – and is celebrating an amazing premiere at the mature age of a tennis professional.
Peter Gojowczyk roared out for all his joy and then clapped his hands in disbelief: The 32-year-old from Munich is continuing the best run of his Grand Slam career with wild determination and is among the best 16 for the first time personal physio had traveled to the US Open, moved into the second round in New York on Friday after the next brilliant performance with a 3-6, 6: 3, 6: 1, 6: 4 success against the Swiss Henri Laaksonen.
“Unbelievable, I don’t know what to say,” said Gojowczyk: “I enjoyed playing on this court so much, unbelievable. Just take it with you, let’s go.” Now he is “probably getting 100 messages again, but it’s cool how people support me.” Gojowczyk has already secured prize money of 265,000 US dollars (around 220,000 euros) and will now face the French Open finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas from Greece or the Spanish top talent Carlos Alcaraz.
“I’m proud of how I manage it all”
Gojowczyk made it into the third round as one of five qualifiers – more than since 1984 at the US Open. And to a certain extent his successes were also victories against probability. While top stars traveled to New York with large teams, Gojowczyk accepted the challenge as a one-man team. “I’m proud of the way I manage all of this,” said the athlete, who trains in Unterföhring near Munich and currently has no permanent coach.
So he single-handedly prepared for Laaksonen, whom he had never met on tour level. In Challenger tournaments he lost two close duels on hard court against the native Finn, but the entire match situation could not be compared to a third round game in a Grand Slam. In bright sunshine on the Grandstand, Gojowczyk got into the first set well, but then lost his focus a little, looked dissatisfied, shook his head. But the reaction was right, he now played more aggressively and at the beginning of the second part of the match immediately got a break that he no longer gave. And Gojowczyk was now fully on the trigger, did not let Laaksonen come back into the duel and cheered about his great success.
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