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Oscar Otte
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Christian Kaspar-Bartke / Getty Images
Oscar Otte lost the semi-finals of the ATP tournament in Stuttgart and missed the first final of his career on the tennis tour.
On Saturday, the man from Cologne was beaten by Italian Matteo Berrettini 6:7 (7:9), 6:7 (5:7) despite a good performance.
For Otte, it was the second semi-final of his career. The top four ended at the tournament in Munich at the end of April.
Berrettini had already won the lawn tournament in Stuttgart in 2019.
In the coming world rankings, Otte could be among the top 50 for the first time, and if he had won a tournament in Stuttgart, he could even have jumped into the top 35.
After Alexander Zverev's injury-related failure at the French Open, Otte is practically the greatest German hope in tennis.
“That sounds completely sick to me.
If someone had said that to me ten years ago, I would have asked: Dude, what's the matter with you?' Otte had said.
Berrettini meets Murray or Kyrgios
He delighted the audience at the Weissenhof with his performance.
His varied game repeatedly led to long rallies.
In addition, both opponents hit extremely hard.
In the first set alone, the Cologne player recorded eleven and the Italian ten aces.
The double fault that decided the first round was all the more annoying for the German.
The second set was a mirror image of the first set.
Again Berrettini had the better end for himself when he took the serve from Otte to make it 4:2 in the tie-break.
His final opponent at the grass event, which is worth 769,645 euros, will be determined in the afternoon between the former Wimbledon winner Andy Murray from Great Britain and the Australian Nick Kyrgios.
Two-time Wimbledon champion Murray had previously knocked out top seed Stefanos Tsitsipas and saved his chance at the first grass title in six years.
ngo/dpa/sid
