Three German players are in the round of 16 of the tennis tournament in Hamburg. After the 19-year-old talent Noma Noha Akugue, Jule Niemeier also made it into the round of 16 in the 235,680 euro clay court event at Rothenbaum on Monday.
In a German duel, the 23-year-old Niemeier won 7: 6 (7: 5), 1: 6, 6: 3 after a hard fight against Ella Seidel from Hamburg. On Sunday, Hamburg’s Tamara Korpatsch was the first local player to reach the second round.
Daniel Altmaier is the first German player to reach the round of 16. The 24-year-old from Kempen beat Frenchman Richard Gasquet, 13 years his senior, 7-5, 6-4 late in the evening.
Zverev in action on Tuesday
At noon, Noma Noha Akugue celebrated her biggest success to date. For the first time, the player from Reinbek near Hamburg made it into the second round of a WTA event. The world rankings-207. won against Laura Pigossi 7:5, 6:4. She lost to the Brazilian in the second qualifying round for the Grand Slam tournament in Paris. Thanks to a wildcard, Akugue is in a main draw of a WTA tournament for the first time ever.
A difficult task awaits her in the round of 16: she meets the winner of the match between number one seeded Croatian Donna Vekic and Australia’s Storm Hunter. Niemeier already knows her next opponent: The Dortmund player meets the Kazakh Julija Putinzewa.
Olympic champion Alexander Zverev will also open in his hometown on Tuesday. The 26-year-old, seeded number four, meets Slovakian Alex Molcan in the first round of the men’s competition, which is worth more than 1.8 million euros.
