Generali Race to Kitzbühel: Being a guest in the beautiful Ländle
While the Generali Race to Kitzbühel preliminary round comes to an end in eastern Austria next weekend with the sixth and last qualifying tournament in Neudörfl in Burgenland, amateur tennis players in the west of the country are in the middle of the hot phase of qualifying for the most exclusive and important amateur tennis event in Europe.
by Claus Lippert
last edit: Jul 05, 2022, 02:27 pm
The traditional Vorarlberg club TC Dornbirn with the experienced tournament director Rudolf Bildstein hosted the second station of the Generali Race to Kitzbühel in the western region last weekend, which produced many happy hobby players and one big winner after a mostly sunny weekend.
Tamira Paszek and Julia Grabher - the pride of TC Dorbirn
"The calendar makers wrote the year 1925, when the whole of Europe was gnawing at the post-war hunger pangs, and a few Dornbirn residents could think of nothing better than to shoot a ball at each other over a stretched-out net with a wooden device". This is how the story of what is probably the most popular and most successful tennis club on the other side of the Arlberg begins in the city of Dornbirn, which has around 50,000 inhabitants. Ländle tennis grows and thrives particularly well here on ten beautifully located sand courts with many other infrastructural amenities. Vorarlberg's flagship club, which is particularly proud of its two eldest daughters, has over 400 members.
Tamira Paszek, quarter-finalist in Wimbledon in 2011 and 2012, and Austria's current number 1 Julia Grabher, who crowned herself as the newly crowned red-white-red state champion last Sunday at the other end of the country, are the figureheads of TC Dornbirn, which is located in also made a name for itself as the organizer of tennis tournaments in the past. So it was obvious that Austria's most important mass sport tennis event would stop in the Bregenz Forest.
#IMG2#
Sebastian Staudacher is the first Kitzbühel fixed starter in the western region
After the successful west start at Wallersee in Salzburg, the second qualifying tournament for the west region in the Generali Race to Kitzbühel 2022 was in the experienced hands of Rudolf Bildstein. As usual, the six ITN categories were all about shimmering turquoise crystal for the winners, but above all about the very important and much sought-after points for the race in the direction of Gamsstadt. Because, and this also applies to friends of cultivated tennis west of the Salzach, only the top 4 of each of the six ITN categories offered qualify. And one player is already halfway through the western Austrian race to Kitzbühel and has no worries about qualifying for the final tournament in Going am Wilden Kaiser, which starts on July 28th.
His name is Sebastian Staudacher, a 17-year-old teenager from Innsbruck, who, after his first win in the ITN category 5.0 in Salzburg, also snatched the title from the Ländle, and with a maximum of 20 points before his two home games in Tyrol (Kolsass & Going ) leading the race superiorly. Incidentally, in the final, Staudacher beat a good old acquaintance of HTT in Hohenems' Dragan Vrebac.
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Fabrice Schilling wins the tournament for Switzerland
Otherwise, the home tournament of the "Dorabirar" consistently achieved domestic victories. In the 6.0 competition, Jovica Rajic from TC Hard did not lose a set, just like Ingemar Breuss in the 7.0 tournament, with which the +40 generation showed a strong sign of life with two tournament wins. In the 8.0 competition, 34-year-old Matthias Gehrer had to survive a critical situation in the semi-finals with a wafer-thin 10:8 win in the match tie-break against his club colleague from TC Hard Benjamin Gmeiner before he again fell in two in the final against Lukas Bucher from TC Vorderland presented his skills in clear sentences and secured 10 points for the race.
In the 9-man competition, the title went to neighboring Switzerland. Fabrice Schilling played a great preliminary round, clinched the group victory and his final ticket with three wins without losing a set. In the final, the 28-year-old defeated super oldie Gerd Gfrerer from TC Altenstadt 11:9 in a dramatic and exciting final phase. However, the 65-year-old was happy about a silver medal and 8 points for the race after a sensationally played weekend.
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Nicolas Fürschuss: In the footsteps of his successful brother
subsidy or subsidy? No matter, Fürschus(ß) there was something? That's right, Tobias Fürschuss was the big hero of last year's Generali Race to Kitzbühel edition and at the end of an incredibly exciting tennis trip in the Tyrolean Unterland he was the man who kidnapped the Cupra Formentor from the Kitzbühel tennis stadium at Kapserfeld and was the first Vorarlberger to win the title at the Generali Race to Kitzbühel "home" via the Arlberg. Since Tobi is no longer corrected for play in 2022 due to new ITN regulations, his family members are simply setting out to do the same as last year's champion.
But first of all the qualification is necessary, and Papa Thomas Fürschuss had to accept a first setback with the quarter-finals in the 5.0 competition against Dragan Vrebac. The brother of the reigning Generali Race to Kitzbühel champion, Nicolas Fürschuss, acted in a completely different way, and in the usual victorious for-shot mode. The 20-year-old secured the 4.0 competition, following in the footsteps of his famous brother after the first qualifying performance. Let's see if he can pull it through to the end in foreshot style and make Hard the Cupra metropolis.