Jan-Lennard Struff is stronger than ever at the ATP tournament in Madrid. The 33-year-old has had a long period of suffering. He can now write an almost unbelievable story against the Russian Arslan Karatsev.
It was the symbol of that evening in Madrid. Jan-Lennard Struff clenched his fist again and again and showed his opponent Stefanos Tsitsipas that the German would not be trifled with in this match. Struff had probably never shown so much conviction, so much will, so much inner peace and courage in a match in his long career as in this quarterfinals in the Spanish capital.
The 33-year-old defeated the fifth in the world rankings from Greece in three sets (7: 6; 5: 7; 6: 3) after two and a half hours and catapulted himself into a semi-final of a 1000 tournament for the first time in his career, behind the Grand Slam-Events the second highest category on the ATP Tour.
The greatest triumph so far for the native Warsteiner. Struff surpasses himself in Madrid. “It feels incredible. It was a very tough fight”said Struff, who incredulously looked through the Madrid tennis stadium Caja Magicalet roam.
Historic success for Struff
The story of Jan-Lennard Struff in Madrid is also so special because he didn’t actually qualify for the main draw. In the final to qualify for the first round, he lost to Arslan Karatsev 4-6, 2-6. (struff: “He destroyed me then.“) and was as good as on the way home.
Struff only slipped as a so-called “lucky loser” into the tournament because other players signed off injured at short notice. And now on Friday evening (from 8 p.m. in the live ticker on sportschau.de) he meets the Russians again – in the semifinals. “It’s crazy. Now we have to analyze and see what we can do better”Struff looked ahead shortly after his triumph over Tsitsipas.
A look at tennis history shows how extraordinary this success is. Struff is only the third after Thomas Johansson (2004 in Toronto) and Lucas Pouille (2016 in Rome). “Lucky loser“, who reached the semifinals of a Masters 1000Events has reached.
Tough fight back to the top of tennis
Anyone who bet at the beginning of the year with such a return of Struffs after his protracted foot and arm injuries in the extremely unfortunate previous season should be one of the particularly great optimists in tennis. Struff had fallen back to world ranking position 167 in mid-January 2023, had to find his way back with difficulty via the second-class Challenger Tour and kept playing qualifying competitions in the main fields of the ATP tournaments – which is not an easy task with a view to Madrid, for example. And now this triumph.
And how difficult it is to work your way back up to the highest level on the tennis tour after a long break due to injury can be seen US OpenWinner Dominic Thiem or Alexander Zverev, both of whom are currently fighting hard and so far in vain to even come close to reaching their former performance potential.
The performance of Struffs, who seems to be able to deal with this return problem faster than others, is all the higher. Even if he has gone through some fluctuations in performance himself in the past few weeks and months.
New German number one soon?
However, the good form of Struffs, who grew up on the red ashes and feels extremely comfortable there, was already in the 1000 tournament Monte Carlo in mid-April. There he surprisingly reached the quarterfinals and defeated the number four in the world rankings, the Norwegian Casper Ruud, on the way there.
In so-called live ranking Struff has now worked his way up to 31st place in the ATP world rankings, which is very close to his best mark – 29th place in the world rankings from August 2020. Should Struff continue his winning streak and even win the tournament, which cannot be ruled out given his current impressive form, he could even become the new number one in Germany.
After his early departure in Madrid, Zverev slipped to 16th place in the world rankings – and the trend is falling. That can by no means be said about Struff.