Sensational Jan-Lennard Struff: The balance is drawn in the Madrid semifinals
Jan-Lennard Struff is in the semifinals of the Masters tournament in Madrid after his sensational win against Stefanos Tsitsipas . There he meets an acquaintance from last week (from 8 p.m., live on Sky).
by Florian Goosmann
last edit: May 05, 2023, 09:46 am
For Jan-Lennard Struff, the Masters tournament in Madrid was actually history this year. "Struffi" started as the top seed in qualifying, but lost to Aslan Karatsev in the last lap. His luck: He moved up as "Lucky Loser" - the rest is history.
The next crazy thing: In the semifinals this Friday, Stuff meets ... Aslan Karatsev! He had played his way into the last four as a qualifier, so it was revenge for the past week. Karatsev had won 6:4, 6:2.
That a lucky loser goes far in a tournament? Not that rare - but an absolute specialty in the category of the Masters 1000 tournament. As the ATP reports, Struff is only the third player since 1990 (the beginning of the ATP's statistical management) to do so - after Thomas Johansson in Toronto in 2004 and Lucas Pouille in Rome in 2006. No one has reached a final in this category.
Will Struff make it to his second ATP final?
Struff, who has stirred up one statistic against all odds, still has to compete against another: his own. Because the Warsteiner doesn't really have a convincing semi-final record: he has reached ten semi-finals on the ATP tour so far, losing nine of them. Only in Munich in 2021 did it continue to the final, in which he lost to Ilya Ivashka. The first ATP title, it's still the big dream.
Struff vs. Karatsev: Two comebackers want to go to the final
Should it work out in Madrid of all places? Apart from last week's qualifying match, Struff did not play any official games against Karatsev, purely in terms of ranking he is the favorite. Karatsev, the sensation man of the year 2021 (he was 14th at the beginning of 2022!) has slipped far down to 121st place. Madrid is also a miracle trip for him.
Struff, on the other hand, who also fell from 29th place in the top 150 due to injury, is one of the players in the fresh season. In the ATP ranking he has worked his way up to 65th place, and in the live annual race he is even number 15!
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