2023-10-17 21:01:50
The ÖTV top young talent knows his group opponents at the final youth tournament in Chengdu.
It was the biggest Austrian youth success since Dominic Thiem’s victory at the Orange Bowl in Plantation in 2011, which he achieved on Sunday with his sensational triumph at the Osaka Mayor’s Cup (ITF J500 category). And with correspondingly great self-confidence, Joel Schwärzler is now making his debut at the 2023 ITF World Tennis Tour Junior Finals in Chengdu. The draw for the two groups was made on Tuesday at the final tournament for the best eight players of the season. The 17-year-old from Vorarlberg (ITF 7) ended up in Group B, with the Russian Yaroslav Demin (ITF 3), the Italian Federico Cina (ITF 10) and the Serbian Branko Djuric (ITF 14). The top two in both groups qualify for the semi-finals on Saturday. At the start, the ÖTV contract player will meet Djuric on Wednesday at 4:00 a.m. CEST, who won his first international men’s title just the week before last at the ITF M15 tournament in Bad Waltersdorf in Styria.
Schwärzler was only included in the field of participants following the American Darwin Blanch (ITF 9) was canceled. According to the paper form, he got the slightly easier group – as far as that can be said given the extremely compact, strong line-up in China. He has a 1-0 record once morest Demin, who was already number one in the youth world rankings and trains at the Rafa Nadal Academy in Mallorca, as well as once morest Cina, with whom he made it to the doubles semi-finals in Osaka. And once morest Djuric his head-to-head score of 1:1 doesn’t read negatively either. Schwärzler, who will be personally looked following on site this week by ÖTV sports director and Davis Cup captain Jürgen Melzer, had formulated his primary goal in advance as follows: “I would of course really like to win the tournament, but my goal is first Getting through the group stage would be nice. I want to try to take it match by match and win.” Winning the tournament brings a travel allowance of $17,000, and the eighth place finisher can also look forward to $8,500.
1697581415
#Schwärzler #starts #Bad #Waltersdorf #winner #Djuric
