2023-05-21 21:58:46
After a less than pleasant start to the season and two semi-final appearances in a row in Santa Margherita di Pula (Italy), Lukas Neumayer has now continued his recent upward trend. And in an impressive way: The 20-year-old snagged his first title of the season in Prague, at another ITF M25 clay court tournament, and did so without even dropping a set. After four two-set successes, the seventh-seeded Salzburger (ATP 347) was also unscathed in the final on Sunday, defeating the third-placed German Henri Squire (ATP 313) 6: 2, 6: 3. Thanks to this successful revenge for a 1: 6, 4: 6 defeat in an ATP challenger in Prague in August 2022 in the only duel between the two so far, Neumayer secured 25 ATP points. With these, he will come significantly closer to the hoped-for return to the top 300 in the world rankings on May 29th.
For Neumayer it is the fourth international men’s singles triumph following two ITF M15 coups in Antalya (Turkey) in February and March 2022 and an ITF M25 title in Spain’s capital Madrid in September 2022, his last tournament win to date. In the Golden City, the reigning Austrian state champion has now found his way back to winning ways. “It was a very good performance from me, especially today in the final,” said the protégé of Günter Bresnik and Gerald Kamitz to the Austrian Tennis Association. “I also played pretty well all week, solid from the first round, not losing a set. Didn’t do much nonsense, which has happened quite often in recent tournaments. But that was really a solid tournament – where actually every match had something that was pretty good,” he said. “Except for the quarter-finals, where I played pretty badly and won it more by fighting, it was like – the longer this tournament went on, the more so – I played at a very high level, especially in the semi-finals and in Final. And I hope I can build on that and keep playing like this.”
Here are all the results of the ITF M25 tournament in Prague.
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