Tennis Summer: June Recap

June is one of the peak periods on the tennis tour, there are big challengers every week and at the highest level of the tour the French Open is just ending, and then Wimbledon is almost just around the corner.

In April and May, Constantin Frantzen and I consistently played at a very high level, but suffered a few bitter defeats against top teams (top 10, top 30 and top 50 doubles world rankings). As a result, despite good performances, we missed a few world ranking points. The expectation pressure for results was therefore high in June. Unfortunately, there was a setback in the first week in Troisdorf; we started one of our home tournaments as the number 1 seeded team and were eliminated straight away in round 1.

That then led to our third defeat in a row. After a few days break and a league game in Luxembourg, we continued in Heilbronn. Heilbronn is and has been voted the best Challenger in the world several times, it's not far from my home, so we could count on a lot of support. Accordingly, expectations were once again very high. The audience was behind us and we were able to present ourselves in top form. We were able to defeat the Masters finalists and number 3 seeds Romain Arneodo and Sam Weissborn in the first round.

We were able to maintain our high level as the tournament progressed and then won the title on Sunday. First 125cc title and first title on sand, in front of family and friends, the greatest sporting success in our careers to date. It was extremely emotional and took a lot of energy in a good sense, but on Monday we went straight on to Lyon for the next Challenger.

We started here as second seeds and wanted to directly build on the success in Heilbronn and this time also live up to the expectations as a seeded team. The week was tough, I posted a few pictures about it on my Instagram account. We slipped a lot and suffered a few injuries, but in the end we were able to reach a final again. Here we were narrowly inferior to a French pairing and the strong support of the spectators. A problem when you play finals, the next tournament almost starts again. After the final it was a 6-hour drive to Stuttgart, 4 hours of sleep, a flight to London, a 4-hour rental car to Ilkley and the start of the grass season. When I woke up in Ilkley on Monday, I didn't know for a moment whether I was at home, in Lyon, Heilbronn or in England. The lawn tournament in Ilkley was very well organized, everything with a British flair and on the “Holy Turf” (More about lawn tennis in the next blog article!).

Here we were able to achieve our first win on grass before we lost in the match tiebreak against the number one seeded pairing Escobar/Nedovesov (and eventual tournament winners). A very successful month that Constantin Frantzen and I want to build on in July.
Thanks to the good results, I was able to move up to number 88 in the doubles world rankings.
At the beginning of July I will play in Wimbledon with Jan-Lennard Struff, before Constantin and I hopefully continue at a few ATP tournaments. The 2nd Bundesliga season with TC Bad Vilbel also begins.