“I will never forget this day!”
That says Yannick Hanfmann (31), who was in the 2nd round of the French Open stands – after an amazing duel that lasted 4:56 hours. Then the Karlsruher had defeated the Brazilian Thiago Monteiro 6: 3, 7: 5, 6: 7, 6: 7, 6: 4 and spoiled his 29th birthday on Wednesday.
“Relief, joy, just done! I always believed in it! Such a match is never over before the last ball is played. I’m currently riding a small wave,” said Hanfmann on Wednesday night in Paris after surviving the first round of a Grand Slam for the first time in his career.
2 times tie breaker! Zverev trembles in the next round!
As a lucky loser, who was actually eliminated in the qualification, the Badener, who is hard of hearing from birth, moved into the main field. He used this opportunity impressively and now meets Argentinian Francisco Cerundolo (24), number 23 in the world, on Thursday.
On the small square 8 of the facility Roland Garros Hanfmann had to fight number 98. The many German fans celebrated him loudly for almost five hours. The game also went his way quickly. After winning the first two sets, victory seemed just a matter of form.
Especially when the number 65 in the world already had match point in the third set with a score of 6: 5 in the tie break. But he forgave it after having to endure a moment of shock. When he served to win the match at 5:4, he fell into the net at 15:15 and rolled under it to the opposing side. Luckily he was unharmed.
“I hyperextended my knee a bit, but I think everything is ok there. Then I would have had to be more aggressive, like later in the fifth set,” said Hanfmann.
The match ball, which was awarded a little later, gnawed at him for a long time. Again and again Hanfmann tried to force his luck with stop balls, but again and again these got too long for Monteiro to answer, or they landed straight into the net.
Yannick Hanfmann wears a hearing aid in everyday life, but not on the pitch
So the measurements at 1:4 and 0:15 in the final round seemed as good as read. But suddenly things turned around. Hanfmann’s punches came back safer and the South American made catastrophic mistakes. So he put two smashes into the net.
“You can’t always be top in five hours. Thiago played really well but I kept at it. I’m physically in good shape and that’s how I won my first five-set match,” said Hanfmann.
Thiago Monteiro was a tough opponent for Yannick Hanfmann
The second match point, which followed a good two hours after the first, was amid frenetic cheers from the German fans, who cheered their heroes for minutes with songs.
So the change in pre-season training, which he completed for the first time in Argentina, paid off. “Experiencing something new is always interesting. I just wanted to get something out of me again.”