Saturday, May 1st, 2021
Struff ahead of first ATP title
170 unsuccessful attempts are enough
Jan-Lennard Struff is currently Germany’s second best tennis professional. In Munich, however, the 31-year-old trumps the prematurely failed top star of the local scene. Struff surprisingly worked out a very special match.
After the match point, Jan-Lennard Struff only clenched his fist briefly and otherwise avoided any exuberant cheers. The German tennis professional stormed into the first final of his career at the ATP tournament in Munich in a very cool way. The 31-year-old Warsteiner beat Ilja Iwaschka from Belarus in two sets with 6: 4 and 6: 1 and grabbed the first title of his now somewhat longer career. In the final on Sunday he will face training buddy Nikolos Bassilashvili from Georgia. Struff then expects a lot of action: “This will not be a slow game.”
After the surprise knockout of the top seeded favorite Alexander Zverev against Iwaschka, another German can secure the home win at the BMW Open on Aumeisterweg. In any case, there is an outsider success: Bassilashvili was only number five on the seed list, Struff was ranked seventh. After two rock-hard duels, each over three sets, the almost two-meter-tall Sauerlander saved energy in cold, wet weather. “But it wasn’t easy,” he admitted after the eighth semifinals of his ATP career and the first happy ending.
“Pulled the tooth bit by bit”
Now the longed-for home triumph should come in his 171st tournament on the elite tour. The key to success was Struff’s coolness that day – unlike in the last sixteen, when he even smashed a racket for motivation. “It was important that I stayed calm,” he analyzed. “I pulled his tooth bit by bit.” A day after his three-hour fight against Filip Krajinovic, Struff needed something to get into the game. At first he lacked precision in the strokes, after a few mistakes it was quickly 3-0 for Iwaschka. “He put me under very good pressure,” said Struff in the BR. “But it was important that I stayed at it.”
Unlike the day before Zverev, Struff found a recipe against the Belarusian’s aggressive game. Thanks to his strong serves – which Zverev completely missed – the Davis Cup professional won five games in a row including two breaks and set one after 48 minutes. And the father of the family followed suit. He grabbed his opponent’s second service game in the second round and showed hardly any weaknesses in his own service. When he broke Iwaschka again to 4-1, the preliminary decision had been made. After 1:26 minutes he converted the first match point after an Iwaschka double fault.
Now Bassilashvili should also be defeated in the final – but he showed his class in the surprisingly clear 6: 1, 6: 2 in the semifinals over the number two seeded Casper Ruud. Like his Norwegian opponent, the Georgian had only finished his quarter-finals, which had been interrupted the day before due to rain, on Saturday morning. Struff and Bassilashvili often train together and have the same manager. Less than a month ago they faced each other in Cagliari – in Sardinia Bassilashvili prevailed. “That was my best match since Australia,” said Struff nonetheless.
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