Jan Lennard Struff served, it was 40:15. The ball landed in the field. Aslan Karatsev swung and hit the ball wide, behind the baseline. Struff tugged at his cap, the peak of which protruded backwards. He kept a straight face as he stepped towards the net. He patted Karatsev on the chest. The face still expressionless. He briefly waved two or three times to the audience. Thanks for the nice applause. Solid first round win. This is what it looked like.
It was the match of his life. Typically Struff, the assistants in his team will certainly say, as will everyone who knows him. Many call him Struffi, which sounds a bit like Schluffi. And he’s also a bit silty, sometimes. But these days you have to say: He is now playing tennis like someone whose name is Struff and not Struffi.
“It’s wonderful. I didn’t imagine anything like that before,” said Struff on Friday evening after the 4: 6, 6: 3, 6: 4 semifinal success in an interview with the ATP Tour reporter. He is now contesting a singles final for the second time this Sunday, in 2021 he lost to Georgian Nikolos Bassilashvili in Munich. But that was at a tournament in the 250 category, that’s when the ATP Tour is just getting started. Madrid belongs to the so-called Masters series, there are nine events each season, they have been held since 1990. They are the most important events after the four Grand Slam tournaments.
Struff’s story is pretty good not only because he achieved the greatest success of his long career. He is now 33 years old and has been a professional since 2009. His route to this final was also highly unusual and even includes a record. A lucky loser had never reached a final at a Masters. This is what players are called who fail in the last round of the qualifying tournament but still make it into the field of participants in the main tournament because a place has unexpectedly become free. For example because someone got injured.
Attack! Jan-Lennard Struff often doesn’t hesitate – and hits the balls with the greatest possible hardness.
(Photo: Manu Fernandez/dpa)
But the story gets even stranger. Struff had already had to compete against Karazew in the last round. 4: 6, 2: 6, it was pretty clear that he had been swept off the pitch. But something happened to Struff this year, not so much with his technique, his shots. His manager Corrado Tschabuschnig from Italy, who speaks fluent German, explained this clearly in an interview with Sky: “He finally knows that he is powerful,” he said. “That he’s big on the pitch, that he’s strong. He’s feeling that more and more now. He used to make himself small from time to time, although he always had the shots. But now you realize you can’t get past him . He’s so huge on the pitch.”
However, Struff’s tennis doesn’t look relaxed at the moment, and it certainly isn’t for his opponents. With his longtime coach Carsten Arriens, who was once Davis Cup team boss, he has worked a lot on his self-confidence, which at times has not been as strong as his game can be. But with the former professional Marvin Netuschil from Hamm, who is now in Madrid as a coach and has joined Arriens and Struff, Struff has once again gained a new charisma.
In Melbourne, Struff took his fears of a difficult match and said to himself: “Oh, I have to beat him!”
Before or after rallies, he is reminiscent of ski racers who stand in the hatch on the Streif in Kitzbühel and vigorously encourage themselves before the start. Or like boxers pounding their chests to wake themselves up. Struff keeps raising his fist, a signal to himself. I’m here. I’m ready. He almost plays point for point. And what’s new is that the quiet Arriens isn’t sitting out there in the box right now. Netuschil is of a completely different nature. He almost makes fight-hungry faces and often yells something at Struff. He looks like a panther on the lookout. In tennis, short coaching from the outside is now exempt from punishment. Struff himself often uses the word “energy”. He needs that. Netuschil also conveys them to him.
Struff attacks whenever he can and sees a chance. He hardly gives the opponents time to breathe. He’s close to the baseline and because he’s 1.93m tall with long arms and moving really well these days he really covers the whole court well. His serve is awesome. And he’s sturdy. He has now won five matches in a row, each in the third set. In Madrid he defeated, among other things, the highly traded young American Ben Shelton, the solid strategist Dusan Lajovic from Serbia, and in the quarterfinals his museum victory against Stefanos Tsitsipas. The Greek was in a Grand Slam final again in January, in Melbourne.
Struff’s new confidence had already been felt at the Australian Open. After qualifying, he met the strong American Tommy Paul. Fear? “Oh, I have to cut it off,” he said in advance. He was ready to take the fight, that’s what was meant. He then lost in three sets. But that attitude has now propelled him into his biggest final yet in Madrid. In the Davis Cup, Struff, extremely popular with all colleagues, has been the German rescuer several times and even saved the team from relegation twice. Now success is his success alone, and in fact he could now replace Alexander Zverev as German number one. He’s just missing a win. He will now be at least 28th in the world rankings, Zverev is still 22nd.
Redefines tennis: The Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz often creates shots that amaze the audience.
(Photo: Clive Brunskill/Getty Images)
But the hurdle in the final is not small. Spaniard Carlos Alcaraz, who won the US Open and turned 20 on Friday, is the measure. Especially since Rafael Nadal (also canceled for the tournament in Rome) and Novak Djokovic (tired) were missing in Madrid. “There will be a great backdrop on Sunday. Maybe not everyone is cheering for me. But that’s fine. I’m very happy with the final,” said Struff. “I could beat him before.” That was in 2021, at the French Open in Paris. But now he also knows: “For a young player like him, two years is a lot of time.” That means: Alcaraz has improved enormously again.
But this amazingly transformed Struff, now the father of two boys, has that too. He is now the seventh German man to be in a Masters final. Boris Becker (22), Alexander Zverev (10), Michael Stich (3), Tommy Haas (2), Nicolas Kiefer and Rainer Schüttler (1 each) had previously done this. “It will be a party on Sunday,” said Tschabuschnig. “Anyway, he’ll go in completely calm. He’s already won his tournament.”