Jan-Lennard Struff cannot confirm his strong form at the French Open. Tatjana Maria almost gets the maximum tennis penalty. Two other German pros do it better.
After his rise to German number one, Jan-Lennard Struff suffered a bitter disappointment right at the start of the French Open.
Unlike Daniel Altmaier and Anna-Lena Friedsam, the 33-year-old tennis pro from Warstein failed in the first round of the classic clay court in Paris. Struff lost 5: 7, 6: 1, 3: 6, 6: 3, 1: 6 to the Czech Jiri Lehecka, he had been seeded in a Grand Slam tournament for the first time in his career.
After Tatjana Maria received a heavy slap 0: 6, 1: 6 against the Brazilian Beatriz Haddad Maia, two other German professionals did better: Altmaier sat down confidently with 6: 3, 6: 4, 6: 4 against the Swiss Marc -Andrea Hüsler through. The 24-year-old from Kempen now meets the winner of the game between eighth-placed Italian Jannik Sinner and Alexandre Müller from France in the clay court classic in Paris.
The Japanese defeated Nao Hibino peacefully 6:3, 3:6, 6:4. The 29-year-old is in the second round of the French Open for the second time since 2015 and is now dealing with Russia’s Ekaterina Alexandrowa or Viktorija Tomowa from Bulgaria.
Struff was 1: 2 behind with a break in the fourth round, but won five games in a row. In the last sentence, however, nothing worked at all, shaking his head in despair, the Sauerland sat on the bench in outdoor court 13. “I would have liked to have seen Struffi a few more matches, but he at least fought to the end,” said Eurosport expert Boris Becker.
On the way to the clay court classic, he celebrated the greatest success of his career by reaching the final at the Masters 1000 tournament in Madrid. By Monday he had even temporarily replaced Alexander Zverev as the top-ranked German player in the world rankings.
So far only Altmaier has reached the second round of the German men. Zverev will enter the tournament against South African Lloyd Harris on Tuesday. Of the eight German tennis professionals who started, Oscar Otte and Jule Niemeier were eliminated in addition to Struff and Maria.
Wimbledon semi-finalist Maria was inconsolable about the result: “Such a defeat definitely hurts,” said the mother of two. “It’s tough because I actually trained well and was in a good mood.”
Source: Stern
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