The mental coach, well-known in the domestic tennis and sports scene, died on June 24, 2024.
Axel Mitterer is no more: This news caused great sadness in the Austrian tennis scene and beyond this week. The qualified mental coach, whose full name is Mag. Dr. Axel Thomas Mitterer, who has been closely associated with tennis for many years, died on Monday morning, June 24, 2024, at the age of just 65. The Innsbruck native had already suffered a medical incident on vacation a few weeks ago and ultimately did not recover from the consequences. At the beginning of the week he lost his toughest battle. He will be buried in Innsbruck on July 1, 2024.
Over the last few decades, Mitterer has been involved in numerous different sports and associations in the red-white-red sports world, from the ÖFB (in Project 12 and in the Austrian U19 national football team) to the Tyrolean Football Association and Tyrolean Triathlon Association to various Tyrolean ski schools and numerous individual athletes and teams. He has taught for the University of Salzburg and as part of the university course in mental coaching in Bregenz. However, he left a particularly strong footprint in tennis, as a state-certified tennis teacher, as sports officer of the TK IEV in his home town of Innsbruck and also through his collaboration with the Tyrolean Tennis Association, Salzburg Tennis Association, Upper Austrian Tennis Association, with the European Tennis Base in Salzburg-Rif and the Tennis Piding Academy, across the border from Germany in Bavaria.
Köllerer, Knowle, Haider-Maurer, Gerald Melzer and Co. as references
Mitterer gained greater fame through his challenging role as Daniel Köllerer’s mental coach, which he began in September 2008. But many other top local players such as Julian Knowle, Andreas Haider-Maurer, Marc Rath, Daniel Geib, Gerald Melzer, Yvonne Neuwirth and many more also relied on the services of the highly likeable Tyrolean. He also worked with Austria’s Davis Cup doubles player Alexander Erler and, for example, accompanied him when he won his first ATP singles world ranking point in Oberhaching (Germany) in October 2015, as Erler’s uncle and manager Markus Erler recalled in an interview with the ÖTV.
Markus Erler remained friends with Mitterer until the end. The news of the popular mental coach’s death hit him all the harder: “He was a fighter and optimist, loved tennis and always got back up again. He was always like a fatherly friend and mentor to many people, tried to pick people up mentally with his positive manner and help them progress. He always motivated and positively inspired his protégés. Even in hopeless situations, he pulled out his smiley stickers, which, like his facial expression, are inseparably linked to him. The closeness and empathy that he brought to his work with all athletes distinguished him,” Markus Erler emphasized.
Despite many health setbacks, Mitterer remained a great philanthropist and optimist in recent years, right up until his last breath.
The Austrian Tennis Association mourns this bitter loss and would like to express its sincere condolences to all the surviving relatives, family and friends of Axel Mitterer.
2024-06-30 00:17:39
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