Generali Open Kitzbühel: Daniel Altmaier after roller coaster ride in the semifinals
Daniel Altmaier reached the semifinals at the Generali Open Kitzbühel 2021 with a three-set win against Gianluca Mager.
by Jens Huiber
last edit:
Jul 29, 2021, 03:57 pm
If you lead 6: 1 and 4: 1, you should actually feel quite safe on the road to victory. And so on Thursday it looked long after that Daniel Altmaier should sail confidently into his second semi-final within a week. Last Saturday, the German had reached the semifinals in Umag, where he failed because of Richard Gasquet. In Croatia Altmaier had also defeated Gianluca Mager, who looked like the sure loser in Kitzbühel for a long time.
But Mager, who had given Dennis Novak no chance in round one and then won against the 2019 finalist Albert Ramos-Vinolas, fought his way back into the game point by point. Much to the delight of the audience, who couldn't get enough of this match. A third sentence came in very handy. Altmaier always put forward with the service, Mager always pulled the same until the eighth game. But then the more experienced Italian gave up his serve, Altmaier served 6: 1, 6: 7 (4) and 6: 3 without much stomach ache.
In the semi-finals on Friday, the 22-year-old from Kempen will face Pedro Martinez, who didn't give Jozef Kovalik a chance in the first match of the day.
Here is the single tableau in Kitzbühel
kitzmap