Krawietz wins his first ATP tournament in New York

2019 could hardly have gone any better for Kevin Krawietz. At the Australian Open in January, the 27-year-old reached the Round of 16 together with Nikola Mektric from Croatia. In the subsequent Hungarian Challenger Open in Budapest, he and the Slovakian Filip Polášek won the tournament. And now, partnered by Andreas Mies, he has won an ATP tournament for the first time. This outstanding success in New York means Krawietz had captured a further 250 points to climb to 50th in the doubles world rankings – his best-ever placement so far. Brose has sponsored the tennis talent from Witzmannsberg near Ahorn since he was 16.

This was the first tournament victory on the ATP Tour for Krawietz and Mies – the pairing had already been able to win six titles on the lower-ranking Challenger Tour. “When we were kids, we dreamed about winning an ATP title. Now we’ve got one – and it feels great,” said Andreas Mies at the winners’ ceremony. “I’m speechless. We couldn’t be happier,” added an over-the-moon Kevin Krawietz.

The duo produced a top-class performance throughout the tournament. After a 7:5, 7:6 (7:3) victory against the second-seeded brothers Ken and Neal Skupski from the UK in the last sixteen and defeating the Australian John Millmann and American Mackenzie McDonald 6:3, 6:2 in the quarter-final, the German pair came up against the Swede Robert Lindstedt and German Tim Pütz in the semi-final on Saturday and ran out winners in two sets (6:2, 6:4).

The final on the Sunday against the experienced pairing Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi (38 years old, 16 ATP titles) and Santiago González (35 years old, 12 ATP titles) was even more exciting. Krawietz and Mies played courageously and forcefully throughout the match and both showed fast reactions at the net. After around one hour and 15 minutes, the German doubles specialists decided the final in their favor in two sets (6:4, 7:5) – meaning they also did not drop a single set in the whole tournament.