Kevin Krawietz among the top 100 in the world

Tennis professional Kevin Krawietz from the Witzmannsberg district of Ahorn has continued his upward trend. At the “Roma Garden Open,” a world-ranking Challenger tournament which was staged by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) and had prize money of €64,000, the 26-year-old professional came through the qualifiers in the singles to advance as far as the semi-finals in the main field. He fared even better in the doubles, which he won together with his 27-year-old partner from Cologne, Andreas Mies, to capture what is already his seventh doubles title this year.

Unseeded Kevin Krawietz began the qualifying stage in Rome with three clear wins. In the main field he was drawn against a tough opponent, Andreas Haider-Maurer, in the first round. However, the Austrian did not stand a chance against Krawietz, who romped to a clear 6:1, 6:3 victory.

He then faced Renzo Olivio in the second round. An intense match with long rallies ensued against the Argentinean, in which Krawietz came out on top by 3:6, 7:6 (2), 6:3 after two hours and 50 minutes.

His opponent in the quarter-final was Vaclav Safranek. The match was exciting and neither player conceded a break of serve, with the result that the first and second sets went to a tie-break, which Krawietz took by 7:5 and 7:3.

He then came up against Laslo Djere in the semi-final. The Serbian had the fortune of being given a bye in the quarter-final because his opponent had injured himself. Krawietz got into the match well, but his opponent made the key points, and so he lost 2:6, 2:6. Krawietz said afterwards: “I was just a bit short of strength today, but I’m very happy about my performance in the whole tournament.”

After his defeat in the semi-final of the singles, he lined up in the semi-final of the doubles in the afternoon. Krawietz and Andreas Mies went on to defeat the Slovakian/Chilean pair Andrej Martin and Hans Podlipnik-Castillo convincingly by 6:4, 6:2.

In the final, Krawietz/Mies came up against the number one seeds Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen. The two Belgians also had the advantage of having had one game less to play, since their semi-final opponents were forced to withdraw due to injury. The German pair broke serve right away, enabling them to take the first set 6:3. In the second set, the Belgians suddenly began making fewer mistakes and won it by 6:2. The super tie-break had to decide the match. It was evenly poised with the score at 4:4, but then the two Germans stepped up a gear, did not give their opponents a look-in and ran out winners by 10:4.

Krawietz has moved up more than 200 places in the ATP world rankings in the singles this year. He was in 584th at the beginning of the year and now he is currently ranked 357th. Thanks to his recent successes, he has captured a spot among the top 100 in the doubles for the first time and is currently in 95th spot.