With three U14 tournament victories and even his first U16 title win last year, he knew how to fully convince at Tennis Europe level. Thilo Behrmann is now transporting his successes to an even higher age group: the recently 15-year-old impressively celebrated his first international U18 coup this Saturday. The ÖTV youngster, born in Freising, Bavaria, won the ITF J30 clay court event in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) thanks to a hard-fought final success. The protégé of the Burgenland Tennis Academy, under Wolfgang Thiem as sporting director, prevailed against Chun-Chien Hou (ITF -) from Taiwan 6:3, 3:6, 7:5. Behrmann is sure of a big leap forward in the youth world rankings. Starting from 1637th place, he will move well under the top 1000.
The other young Austrian participants in East Africa had also shown themselves from their best side. Fabio Karner, who trains in Thiem’s ATC academy in Traiskirchen and reached the round of 16, scored his first ITF points, as did Constantin Neubauer, who, at just 14, even made it into the semifinals without losing a set. There the Burgenland lost in three sets against Hou, as did the 15-year-old Upper Austrian Jan Hemetzberger (ITF 1696) in the quarter-finals. Behrmann, who reached the final without losing a set, was finally able to take revenge on his colleagues from the Burgenland Tennis Academy and stop the Asian. “I was afraid that Hou would take all the players out of us one after the other,” smiled Sebastian Beutel, who has been extremely successful in looking after the red-white-red youngsters on this tournament trip to date, in his statement to the Austrian Tennis Association.
Pouch: “Sensational First Week of Tournaments”
Hemetzberger was close to winning against Hou in the quarter-finals: “Jan played a great match and put in a really good performance. It could have gone the other way,” said Beutel. In the semifinals, Neubauer “left a few chances in the first set. Thank God Thilo did better in the final.” It was “not so good in terms of tennis – Thilo’s quarterfinals, which for me was the best match of the tournament and his best performance, were a lot better. But he’s just an insane fighter and kept his head there all the time. He led 6-3, 2-0, until then he and Hou both seemed a little self-conscious and nervous. Thilo then lost the second set, collapsed a bit and almost took a step back in the third round, in terms of level.” After a few mistakes, the decision quickly became 0:3. Ultimately, however, Beutel was able to report on Behrmann’s tremendous fighting performance: “You have to give him credit for coming back from 0:3 in the third set in his first ITF final. He kept fighting. For me, that was the most positive thing about the game.”
And so there was still a happy ending. “That made me incredibly happy for Thilo, because he is a very, very hard worker, very meticulous and disciplined, and he definitely deserved it.” There was also a double semi-final alongside Neubauer . This week’s balance sheet was correspondingly pleasing: “A sensational first tournament week for the boys, especially since all three (Behrmann, Neubauer and Hemetzberger; note) Born in 2008 – so very, very young for ITF tournaments.” And even if the youth tournaments in Africa are traditionally a little weaker, the victories and points won were by no means easy prey: “For a tournament of this category in Africa, a very , very good level played. There weren’t the absolute top people in the ranking list, but the level of play was stronger than I would have expected. And the fact that all three made it into the quarter-finals made me really happy for the boys.” In the new week, the local youth hopefuls will have the next opportunity to create happy moments again – another ITF-J30 tournament in Addis Ababa on the program.
Here are all the results of the ITF J30 tournament in Addis Ababa.
