Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen overcome a marathon battle to reach the BMW Open final
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Jan-Lennard Struff survived a thrilling three hours battle to reach his second BMW Open semifinal on Friday. The seventh seed recovered from a break down twice in the final set to defeat Filip Krajinovic 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 in a tie breaker on Centre Court. With his first ATP head-to-head victory against Krajinovic, the 31-year-old is through to his second semifinal in Munich.
“It was a very, very hard match,” Struff said in his on-court interview. “I expected a very tough match and a hard fight. In the end, I am very happy that I could reach my second semifinal in Munich.”
Struff will next face top seed Alexander Zverev or Ilya Ivashka for a spot in the championship match. “I would love to play [Zverev],” Struff added. “I wish him all the best for the match coming up now against Ivashka, who is a very good player. I would love to play Sascha here for the third time and try to beat him, because I lost twice against him here on Centre Court. I hope that we have a German semi-final.”
Sander Gille and Joran Vliegen saved a match point to reach the BMW Open final in Munich. The third seeds survived a marathon final set tie-breaker to defeat German wild cards Dustin Brown and Peter Gojowczyk 6-3, 6-7, 13-11.
Following their title run at the Singapore Open in February, Gille and Vliegen are seeking to secure their second trophy of the year. The Belgians will meet top seeds Wesley Koolhof and Kevin Krawietz for the title.
Virtue of walkover, Koolhof and Krawietz advanced to the final due to the withdrawal of their semifinal opponents Yannick Hanfmann and Dominik Koepfer. Hanfmann had to pull out of both singles and doubles competitions due to a neck injury.
Hugo Nys and Tim Puetz prevailed over a 26-point match tie-break on Friday to defeat Raven Klaasen and Ben McLachlan 3-6, 6-4, 14-12. They have reached their first ATP Tour team final at the Millennium Estoril Open.
Earlier, Raven Klaasen and Ben McLachlan had defeated Nicholas Monroe and Frances Tiafoe 6-3, 6-7(4), 10-6 to reach the last-4.
