ATP Stockholm: Ymer's success story continues
Cedric-Marcel Stebe faces a very special opponent in the second round of the ATP Tour 250 tournament. With 21-year-old Sweden Mikael Ymer waiting for a local hero of NextGen, the 2019 has a steep climb behind.
by Robert M. Frank
last edit: Oct 16, 2019, 10:50 pm
Mikael Ymer's impressive run (ATP 75) seems to be continuing at the ATP Tour 250 tournament in Stockholm. The 21-year-old Swede has put in another round of exclamation at his home tournament in the Swedish capital in the first round with a first-round victory against the Portuguese Joao Sousa (ATP 64).
The very athletic playing NextGen talent has been in great shape for weeks and is in the world rankings as well as never before. In 2019, the young Scandinavian alone has already won four tournament victories on the Challenger Tour. Most recently, in his two successes on French soil in Orléans and Mouilleron le Captif there were ten individual victories in series. Likewise, Ymer won his two games in the Swedish Davis Cup team against Israel. With his brother Elias (ATP 123), he had also won the 2016 ATP tournament in Stockholm.
A year ago, outside the top 250
Wins against top 100 players, the whiz kid has already retracted in the current season five pieces. Although Ymer most recently on the Challenger Tour was on the road and the big breakthrough on the ATP Tour in his appearances in Bastad and the Masters in Miami and three Grand Slams (US Open, Wimbledon and Roland Garros) was still missing is with the Swedish number one soon on the big stage expected.
With a success in the second round in Stockholm against Cedric-Marcel Stebe (ATP 213), the shooting star, which was placed outside the top 250 at the end of 2018, would continue on its way up. And the limelight, in which once had the squad of Swedish tennis legends Lennart Bergelin, Bjorn Borg, Mats Wilander, Stefan Edberg and Jonas Björkman had come closer, bit by bit. In any case, in the Race to Milan Ymer is already among the Top Ten of NextGen.