The world of tennis is full of wondrous statistics and number puzzles. Like this: Which player played six three-set matches in a row at an ATP tournament and also qualified? The answer: Jan-Lennard Struff. Or this: Who was the third oldest professional to win his first ATP title at the age of 33? Also answer: Jan-Lennard Struff.
However, this late premiere, seven months ago in Munich, has no impact on Struff’s work performance. He once said he wished it had happened sooner, because a title like that can act like a flywheel in everyday professional life. “But my career wouldn’t be worth any less without the win.” You don’t have to artificially inflate things to see their value.
However, the two statistics mentioned can be boiled down to their substance, namely persistence and consistency. And that brings us to the middle of explaining why the German Davis Cup team with Jan-Lennard Struff, now 34 years old and number 43 in the world tennis rankings, is in the semi-finals of this traditional team competition, as was the last time in 2021. On Friday evening (from 5 p.m.) Struff will have to compete with Botic van de Zandschulp, the 29-year-old Dutchman who ended Rafael Nadal’s world career on Tuesday.
Struff is not the captain of the team, this official title goes to national coach Michael Kohlmann, but he is his reliable adjutant. He has been playing for the national team for eight years, even longer than the indestructible 37-year-old doubles specialist Tim Pütz; Stuff played 20 national duels and successfully completed 14 of his 23 individual matches. When the team boss calls, he packs his bags, not just out of a sense of duty, but because, as a sole tennis entrepreneur, he feels excited about the group adventure. “We get along well, we have a good team spirit, even away from it, many of the processes are great, it’s fun and everyone has the incentive to play well,” he said after the quarter-final win against Canada on Wednesday. Plenty of good reasons for appearing in Kohlmann’s collective.
“We need every man,” emphasizes team boss Michael Kohlmann
He is now also used to having to shoulder the burden of dealing with the opponent’s top players and their special skills in the absence of Alexander Zverev, which happens often. In the quarterfinals that meant finding a way to defuse Canadian gunner Denis Shapovalov’s serves. They know each other well from the duels on the ATP Tour, and Struff, who also “serves like a hangman,” as his colleague Andreas Mies once said, knew how difficult the task was. Shapovalov, a former Wimbledon semi-finalist, hit 27 aces, won 90 percent of his points with the first service, and he even fired the second serve onto the lines at 180 km/h, sometimes left, sometimes right. “That’s hard to read,” said Struff, “and it’s hard to stay calm.” After losing the first set, he fended off the attack in the tiebreak of the third set, 4:6, 7:5, 7:6 (5 ). Because Struff secured the 2-0 match lead, the team was spared a doubles appearance.
However, Struff would be the last person to tailor the narrative of the matter exclusively to himself. Rather, he referred to the important first point win by Daniel Altmaier, 26, who had previously beaten Gabriel Diallo – in only the third match for the national tennis team. And he didn’t forget to mention that he was completely uninvolved in reaching the final round: a hip injury not only cost him his participation in the Olympics in the summer, but also prevented him from taking part in the Davis Cup intermediate round in China. However, he was involved in the first round victory in Hungary in February.
Zverev was not available all year, and the team boss has now found a team with different line-ups that can compensate excellently for the non-participation of the world number two. In Malaga, in addition to Struff and Altmaier, he also has Yannick Hanfmann and the ATP double world champions Tim Pütz/Kevin Krawietz at his disposal. He invited Maximilian Marterer and the 24-year-old Henri Squire to China, and Dominik Koepfer on the trip to Hungary. The approach of relying on diversity has proven successful for Kohlmann: “This year is a prime example of how you have to be very broadly positioned in a Davis Cup season in order to be successful,” he said: “We need everyone Man.”
He certainly sees similarities to the team of his colleague Paul Haarhuis, who beat the favored Spaniards Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz with the Dutch selection. The format of a final round with a maximum of three matches each suits the Netherlands well, says Kohlmann, because they always have “two balanced singles players”, Tallon Griekspoor and Botic van de Zandschulp, as well as an excellent doubles team thanks to Wesley Koolhof. On the other hand: Jan-Lennard Struff also has to be beaten first.
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