For the fourth time in a row, a WTP tournament took place in Kiel. This time the tournament was the last of three tournaments within the “ESTESS Schleswig-Holstein WTP Tour” and with hospitality for the players. The hotel “GHotel and Living” right next to the facility fitted perfectly into the concept for the two-day tournament (08.-09.08).
Tournament director Johan Hurtigh notices a clear development of WTP in northern Germany. – Year after year you can see that the perception of WTP among the players is growing, he says.
The concept with short tournaments over 2-3 days goes well with the future and challenge tours and is well received.
– We had a lot of requests this year from players who were eliminated from futures in qualifiers or 1st round. Some were able to play in the tournament, for some it was too short.
– Next year we will set the date even later in the week so that more players can play from the futures and then go to the next future right after the WTP tournament.
A team from India with the players Tarun Karra and Arjun Mahadeva and their coach Bharat Parthasarathy was in Kiel and created a good atmosphere at the tournament.
– WTP is awesome. We need that in India as well. It’s better to get international points, then national points and it’s easier to entry a WTP tournament then a national tournament.
And I like the concept with short tournaments and that you can connect them with Futures.
– We need this kind of tournament to support the players. Not just in Europe. We need it everywhere, he said. One of his protégés – Tarun Karra, caused the greatest excitement of the tournament in his quarterfinals and showed again that tennis is decided in the mind.
After a 6-0 lead in the tiebreak in the first set, Tarun gave up the tiebreak with 6-8. 20 minutes later he had won the second set 6-0. Only to concede the final set to his opponent Jason Hildebrandt at 2-6. – It was a crazy game, he said and smiled.
But you know, that’s tennis. The referee at the tournament was Björn Bork with over 20 years of experience on the ATP tour. – I like WTP. It would have helped me a lot as a referee and supervisor back then.
– It has always been a problem on the tour to integrate players with only national points on the international tour.
Whose ranking is better than the other? WTP closes the gap perfectly because you can easily convert the national rankings and have all players in one system.
– It’s an ingenious system and would have saved us numerous hours on the tour back then, he said on the sidelines of the tournament.
The tournament was won by Zuzana Zlochova, Slovakia, for women and Niklas Guttau, Germany for men. Results Final: Women: Zuzana Zlochova, Svk – Lisa Ponomar, GER 6-4, 6-2 Men: Niklas Guttau, Ger-Tim Hammes, Ger 6-2, 6-1.
– All results: wtptennis.net
