Krawietz wins in Budapest

Kevin Krawietz has won the doubles with his partner, the Slovakian player Filip Polasek, at the tournament in Hungary to move up to 59th in the world rankings. He will now contest a tournament in the U.S. on Wednesday.

Tennis professional Kevin Krawietz is going from success to success in 2019. The 27-year-old from the Witzmannsberg district of Ahorn reached the Round of 16 at the Australian Open in Melbourne and has now won at the Hungaria Challenger Open in Budapest. He and his partner Filip Polasek (Slovakia) ran out winners in the final by 7:5, 7:6. The points Krawietz picked up as a result mean he has advanced to 59th in the doubles world rankings of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP). Kevin Krawietz originally wanted to line up with the Austrian player Dennis Novak in the doubles, but the latter had to contend with back problems. Filip Polasek stood in for him at short notice. The 33-year-old Slovakian player was ranked 20th in the WRL in 2012. He was forced to take a long break because of injury and only returned in 2018.

In the first round, the German/Slovakian team defeated the Hungarian duo Mark Keki and Fabian Marozsan without any problems by 6:1, 7:6 (8:6). They then came up against the doubles specialists Tamasz Bednarek (Poland) and Zdenek Kolar (Czech Republic) in the second round. After dominating the first set and winning it 6:0, Krawietz/Polasek took things a little more easily and captured the second by 6:4. The semi-final against Nikola Cade and Nikola Milojevic was more evenly matched. Nevertheless, the Serbian duo, who had previously defeated the number 3 seeds, went down by 5:7, 6:7 (4:7). Krawietz and Polasek faced off in the final against Filippo Baldi (Italy) and Luca Margaroli (Switzerland), an unseeded pairing who had already thrown two seeded teams out of the running. Krawietz/Polasek broke serve right away but were broken back with the score at 4:2. With the match tied at 5:5, they managed to break their opponents again to move 6:5 ahead. Kevin Krawietz then served in commanding fashion to win the set 7:5. The second set was pretty much like the first, with an early break and a re-break. Both teams then held their serves and so the set had to be decided on a tie-break. Krawietz/Polasek maintained the upper hand to take it by 7:5. “We gelled better from game to game. We’re very happy,” said a delighted Kevin Krawietz after the tournament.

He flew directly from Budapest to New York, where he is contesting the ATP 250 tournament with Andreas Mies from Cologne as his doubles partner in the main field. The first match in the U.S. is on Wednesday against the number 2 seeds Skupksi/Skupski from the UK.