Swiss Jil Teichmann versus Hungarian Anna Bondar and Sweden‘s Mikael Ymer versus Bernabe Zapata Miralles of Spain: the singles finals in Klosters promise to be mouth-watering on Sunday.
Already the semi-finals saw four high quality matches. The highlight from the host nation’s perspective was the 6-3 6-4 win of Jil Teichmann versus Marketa Vondrousova. The Swiss showed a more verstaile play and served more consistently against the world number 1, whom she had already beaten at the ITF Junior Masters in Chengdu in March. Only towards the end did her opponent find a better rhythm, tieing the match after being 1-4 down. “I wanted to make the match more interesting”, an ironic Teichmann said with a big smile after managing to win the final points.
She has now a chance to become the third Swiss 18 & Under titlist. Back in 1994, in the first of now 19 editions in Klosters, a wunderkind named Martina Hingis won the title, 13 years later, Stefanie Vögele prevailed, though that edition of the tournament was held in Austria.
On Sunday, Teichmann will face the only unseeded Hungarian in the draw, Anna Bondar. But contrary to her higher-ranked compatriots Dalma Galfi and Fanni Stollar, who were eliminated early, Bondar was able to advance to the showdown, notching up consecutive quality wins versus Wimbledon finalist Anna Blinkova and Vondrousova’s doubles partner Miriam Kolodziejova. “I have known her for a long time and she is a very good player, but of course I want to win”, Teichmann said.
The boys finalists couldn’t have had more contrasting paths to the final. Mikael Ymer had absolutely no problem to beat Spain’s Alvaro Lopez San Martin in the first match of the day. The last singles match being played on Saturday, turned out to be a true epic, however. Bernabe Zapata Miralles and Stefanos Tsitsipas gave the crowd an absolutely fascinating display of opposing styles in conditions that varied from nice and sunny to rather cold and windy. The Spaniard chased down ball after ball, his opponent created a lot of pressure, especially with his trademark shot, the fluent one-handed backhand down the line. In the end, it was a physical and mental battle: Zapata Miralles was the last man standing and clinched the match by winning 11 of the last 12 points.
The first national anthem to play was the German one. Tim Sandkaulen & Louis Wessels overcame in the first set stern resistance of the surprising Austrians Alexander Erler & Matthias Haim and finallly won 7-6 6-1. It was a second win in this event for Germany, 36 years after Hans-Dieter Beutel & Christoph Zipf had taken the trophy in Bastad. Later, the Czech girls avenged their semi-final loss by claiming the doubles title with a 6-4 7-5 win over Wimbledon champions Dalma Galfi & Fanni Stollar. It was, everything combined, the ninth title of the year for Kolodziejova and Vondrousova.
From Marco Keller in Klosters
Draws, Results & Photos
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