Jan-Lennard Struff continues to cause a sensation in Madrid. The 33-year-old also defeated Karatsev and is now in the final.
Jan-Lennard Struff continued his impressive winning streak at the Masters 1000 tournament in Madrid and surprisingly reached the final.
The 33-year-old tennis pro from Warstein won his semi-final against the Russian Aslan Karatsev 4:6, 6:3, 6:4 on Friday evening and is in the final of a tennis tournament in the second highest category for the first time. Struff converted his fifth match point after 2:18 hours.
“Struffi, you’re a machine!!!”, wrote the three-time Wimbledon winner about the happiest “lucky loser” in the tennis world. Alexander Zverev, soccer world champion Mats Hummels and table tennis player Dimitrij Ovtcharov were also happy on Instagram about Struff’s first entry into a Masters final.
Alcaraz is waiting in the final
In the qualification, Struff clearly lost in two sets against Karatsev. Only as a so-called “lucky loser” did he move into the main draw of the 8.796 million euro clay court event and took his chance.
In the quarterfinals, Struff had already surprised with a win against the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas. In the final he now has to deal with the Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz. The number one seeded favorite clearly won his semi-final against Croatian Borna Coric 6:4, 6:3.
“Of course it will be very difficult against Carlos now, but I will try. I will do my best to win my first title,” said Struff.
It is the third duel between the two. In 2022 in Wimbledon Struff lost in five sets, in 2021 the German had beaten the Spaniard in Paris on ashes. “Yes, but that was two years ago. Now it will be a different game. This is Madrid, this is Spain,” said Struff.
nerves of steel
Struff got off to a good start against Karatsev and was quickly ahead 3-1 in the first set. But then Karatsev increased, Struff took the serve twice himself and got the first set after 42 minutes.
Struff was undeterred by this. As in the entire tournament, the Davis Cup professional showed great fighting spirit and took over the command in the second round with a powerful game. After 1:18 hours, Struff managed to equalize the set. In the third set he then made the decisive break to make it 3:2 and then largely played his service games confidently.
Struff soon German number one?
For Struff, a period of suffering ended with the successful tournament in Madrid. “I’m just happy to be back,” he said, recalling that a broken toe slowed him down last year and even knocked him out of the top 100 in the world rankings.
Now the 33-year-old, who has only reached a final once on the ATP tour and is still waiting for a tournament victory, is even scratching the top 30, his highest placing so far (29) is within reach. And soon he could even replace Olympic champion Zverev as German number one.