Final qualifying duel for the U18 Championship title in Neudorfel

The ÖTV U18 Youth Championship at TC Neudörfl goes straight into the house. The final matches of the individual competitions have been held in the Mattersburg region of Burgenland since Wednesday. There will be a qualifying duel for the boys: ÖTV contracted player Janis Graske (WTV) will meet Felix Mori (STTV) on Thursday no later than 11:00. For the girls, a star from the ÖTV Südstadt Performance Center also made it to the final: Leonie Rabel. The local champion (BTV) will meet second-ranked Johanna Andrea Korsiova (WTV) in a title clash for the top seeds from 9:30 am.

Influential marches

Both Graski and Morey overcame obstacles with confidence in the preliminary round. In the main competition, the former not only defeated eighth seed Florian Dolez (NÖTV) in the round of 16, but also defeated local champion top seed Alexander Wagner (BTV) in three sets. With 6:2, 6:4 against another qualifier, Florian Zimmer (NÖTV), Graski finally got his ticket to the final. Equally impressive is Mori's successful run, where he, along with BTV youngsters Niklas Meislinger, Gabriel Niedermayer and Alexander Geschel, managed to eliminate numbers three, five and two from the seed list from the second round onwards and still not drop a set. He left nothing to be desired against Geschel in the second semi-final with a score of 6:2, 6:2.

Rubble also lived up to her role as favorite admirably. The 16-year-old gave her three previous rivals a total of just five games and defeated substitute Chiara Semmelmayr (NÖTV) 6:2, 6:0 in the upper semi-final. Kursiova, on the other hand, had to struggle greatly in her debut after a first-round bye and only prevailed against Vanessa Kohut (NÖTV) in a third-set tiebreak. She mastered the next two hurdles with complete ease, winning 6:1, 6:1 over Athena Strohle (VTV/6) in the semifinals. It is not surprising that Rabel and Kursiova are now competing for the title of the senior youth category.

Gruber/Kieslinger and Srejic/Ilicicko can celebrate

In the double competitions, the winners were already announced on Wednesday – despite the bad weather, in the hall. For the boys, Simon Gruber and Peter Kisslinger continued their impressive run of success following their first ITF doubles win the previous week in Vienna. After a narrow victory in the semi-final over the top seeds Gschiel/Maislinger, the two Tyrolean teams were also able to assert themselves in the final against the NÖTV pair of Bastian Burns and Elias Trausmuth with a score of 6:3, 6:1. In the girls category, Lana Srejic (WTV) and Avril Iliczko (BTV) won all three of their matches in the tie-break, the title fight by a narrow margin of 7:6, 4:6, 11:9 against Kursiova/Semelmir. . All this before the eyes of ÖTV Sports Director and Davis Cup captain Jürgen Melzer.