An elated Jan-Lennard Struff, at the age of 33, wins his first title to become the third oldest first-time champion since the tour was established in 1990.
“I waited so long. I’m 33 years old and played so long on tour. It’s just an amazing feeling to do it here in Germany,” said Jan-Lennard Struff.
The German will celebrate his 34th birthday in four days’ time.
Seeded fourth at the BMW Open in Munich, an ATP 250 level event, he defeated the third seed, American Taylor Fritz, in front of a home crowd, 7-5 6-3.
“Unbelievable – to do it on home soil is just incredible,” a beaming Struff said following his victory. “I waited so long. I’m 33 years old and played so long on tour. It’s just an amazing feeling to do it here in Germany.”
The 28th-ranked German player had lost his previous three appearances in finals, but he converted 5 of 11 break points against Fritz to win in one hour, 19 minutes.
Struff had reached three singles finals, two of which were also on home soil, including last year in Stuttgart against Frances Tiafoe of the US, when he held a match point.
And that scenario looked to be happening again when he dropped his serve to love while attempting to serve out against Fritz, but he recovered from that unfortunate setback by breaking back immediately to finally settle the outcome with an emphatic smash at the net on championship point.
As Struff had virtually eliminated the two-time defending champion, Denmark’s Holger Rune, going for a third successive title, 6-2 6-0 in the semis, it seems only right that he should go on to replace him as champion.
Fritz had beaten Cristian Garin 6-3 6-4 the day after the Chilean had taken down the top-seeded Alexander Zverev 6-4 6-4.
Meanwhile, in Bucharest, Romania, the unseeded Hungarian Marton Fucsovics beat Argentina’s Mariano Navone, the fifth seed, 6-4 7-5 to lift the Tiriac Open trophy at the National Tennis Centre.
(Photo by Sebastian Widmann/Getty Images for BMW)
