Jan-Lennard Struff continued his impressive winning streak at the Masters 1000 tournament in Madrid and surprisingly reached the final.
The 33-year-old tennis pro from Warstein won his semi-final against the Russian Aslan Karazew 4:6, 6:3, 6:4 on Friday evening and is in the final of a tennis tournament in the second highest category for the first time. Struff converted his fifth match point after 2:18 hours.
Alcaraz is waiting in the final
“It’s crazy. I never expected that,” said Struff. In qualifying, Struff had clearly lost in two sets against Karazew. Only as a so-called lucky loser did he move into the main draw of the 8.796 million euro clay court event and took his chance.
In the quarterfinals, Struff had already surprised with a win against the Greek Stefanos Tsitsipas. In the final he now has to deal with the Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz. The number one seeded favorite clearly won his semi-final against Croatian Borna Coric 6:4, 6:3. “Of course it will be very difficult. But I’m looking forward to it and will try everything. Otherwise I have no chance,” said Struff.
nerves of steel
Struff actually got off to a good start and was quickly ahead 3-1 in the first set. But then Karazew increased, Struff took the serve twice himself and got the first set after 42 minutes.
Struff was undeterred by this. As in the entire tournament, the Davis Cup professional showed great fighting spirit and took over the command in the second round with a powerful game. After 1:18 hours, Struff managed to equalize the set. In the third set he then made the decisive break to make it 3:2 and then largely played his service games confidently.
