Stuttgart’s Kent Mueller wins under-16 tennis tournament at TC Waiblingen – Sports news from the Rems-Murr region and the world

The “Peter Hagedorn International” at Waiblingen Tennis Club bears its new name: the winners of the U14 Tennis European Championships are Elisa Rohrbach from France and Dominique Wagner from the Czech Republic, in U16 Ran Wakana from Japan and Kent Müller from Stuttgart.

Kent Mueller of TEC Waldau Stuttgart and Tim Kohl of Troisdorf reached the U16 final. Müller, an under-16 semifinalist in Waiblingen last year, defeated Latvian seed Rihards Nimanis 6:1, 6:3 in the semifinals. In the final he met Tim Cole, who knocked out Benjamin Fock (Reutlingen) 6:3, 3:6, 6:2 in the previous round. The final lasted only 59 minutes, until Müller took home the winner’s cup with a score of 6: 1, 6: 3. “This is my biggest success so far – and Waiblingen is also my favorite tournament,” said Stuttgarter after his success.

Mueller has improved a lot

Müller has improved a lot this season – says his uncle, TV journalist Guido Dobratz. Müller trains with Jakob Herm-Zahlava in Cannstatt and goes to school in Mannheim – two days of face-to-face lessons, the rest is home office. And at the Boss Open in the Weissenhof in Stuttgart, he was a solid partner for the players.

Second seed Elisa Rohrbach (France) won in the girls’ under-16 6:1, 6:4 over Chrysoola Paraskevopoulou. The little Greek from Thessaloniki attends a German school and has also improved her language skills in Waiblingen.

And Dominique Wagner came from the Czech Republic with a difference of 3: 5 from Moroccan Abdelaziz Gnouni in the first set in the final, but he won after 7: 5, 6: 2. What is remarkable about the little Moroccan: While other young slits always walk to the court with large tennis bags, Abdel Aziz arrived only with a backpack, three rackets and two pairs of T-shirts to change into.

Ran Wakana of Japan took advantage of the resignation of Kim Jessen (Bad Friedrichshall) with a score of 4: 3 in the U-16 girls’ semi-final. In the final against Ukrainian Paulina Skylar, Wakana was the superior player and won 7:5, 6:2.

Advantage for the Italians

Apart from the participants from Germany, the Italians presented the largest number of participants from the academies in Padua, Genoa and Verona. Tournament director Peter Hagedorn commented: “No wonder the Italians are so much better than the Germans at the international level too. Just look to Matteo Berrettini or Jannik Sinner for the guys.” Six participants came from Japan (Hagedorn: “They’ve been very good at women’s tennis for years”), Australia sent a group of twelve players and Canada sent ten to Waiblingen. All of them are under the supervision of good coaches.

And what about the Germans? Hagedorn spoke to a few coaches at the facility and came to the following conclusion: “For many players, association games are often more important than international tournaments. This really starts with team registrations in youth, where you have to report according to performance classes (LK) and not according to rank. As a result, many participate in two-game one-day tournaments and improve their LK rather than compete internationally.” Since the introduction of “those LK-Fuzzi tournaments” a few years ago, tennis’s decline has been The German in the youth sector is big – and that had an effect later. The best German athlete is currently the mother of two, Tatiana Maria, at 76th in the world rankings. “In the past, there were always German players in every group of ten in the world rankings.”

Almost only foreign players

In the most important U14 competition, Selma Hohmann, already from Luxembourg, and Lacey Bohr from Hechingen were among the final eight. In the semi-finals there were foreign players from Ukraine, Morocco, Turkey, Czech Republic, Turkey, Greece, Romania, Great Britain and France. The best U 14 players play in Tennis Europe tournaments as well as in Waiblingen in the U 16 category. The best already have the right to start in junior ITF tournaments, where they collect points so that they can start later in ATP and WTA tournaments.

The Canadian girls were sponsored by Dorothea Enek – they won the U-16 competition in Waiblingen in 2007, and were later among the top 200 teams in the world and won the Fed Cup for Serbia. There were some participants with prominent relatives. Quarterfinalist Leylaton Aliassime is the cousin of ATP top ten player Félix Auger-Aliassime. Or Pietro Gaudenzi: he is the son of ATP President Andrea Gaudenzi and won the U14 doubles final with partner Elia Rufino against Matti Barth / Lacey Bohr (Reutlingen / Hechingen).

Much praise for Waiblingen

Karol Esmendi was superintendent at Waiblingen for eleven years. He’s been praising Team TCW for years (“the perfect team-up with a great team”) with Hagedorn, Gisela Stecher, and – new to the team – Dian Stephan, who takes care of everything besides sports at “Peter Hagedorn International”. And that’s after two years of membership in the TCW. MORE: Her Indonesian mother Yeyen knows Claudia’s mother single-starter from the Pacific Island nation, Ethan Zapp.

There was also praise from abroad. Brazilian Carolina Viale thanked Peter Hagedorn that her son Henrique played only his first match on Monday evening after arriving from Croatia late Sunday evening, and described the Kazakh coach Waiblingen as “the best organized tournament in the series with Waiblingen, Ulm, Augsburg and Reiningen”.

Former groundskeeper Ivan Turek came from retirement in Croatia to take care of ‘my pitches’, which even survived Friday’s torrential rain. He is praised by all coaches and supervisors. About 25 people participate in the tournament. For example in the driving service. And the drivers also do a lot of advertising about Remstal’s viticulture. Not only has Remstal-Riesling been bought by Canadian manager Philippe Curto, Karoly Izmendi has also been rewarded for his job with “Riesling Großes Gewächs”.