Black Friday

All Austrians out in the Mauthausen quarter-finals

At the Challenger tournament in Mauthausen on Friday, all ÖTV hopes of winning the tournament - Joel Schwärzler, Gerald Melzer and Filip Misolic - were eliminated in the quarter-finals! 

The 18-year-old Schwärzler was playing against Dimitar Kuzmanov at the same time as Dominic Thiem's retirement announcement went online. The Bulgarian ultimately prevailed 6:2, 6:3. Schwärzler also had to bow out in the doubles with Neil Oberleitner.

"I expected more!"
"I'm hugely disappointed because I expected more. Dimitar played his game from start to finish," explained Schwärzler, who is considered by many to be the designated successor to Thiem as Austria's tennis figurehead. The Vorarlberg native has planned a training block for the coming week before heading to the next ATP Challenger in Skopje.

Misolic lost 5:7, 4:6 to Francisco Comesana, the top seed in Upper Austria, while Melzer lost 6:7(6), 3:6 to Jozef Kovalik from Slovakia. Schwärzler and Oberleitner suffered a 4:6-3:6 defeat in the doubles semi-final against the German pairing of Constantin Frantzen/Hendrik Jebens.