{"id":37321,"date":"2023-05-07T21:05:47","date_gmt":"2023-05-07T21:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/tennis-lucky-loser-struff-hopes\/"},"modified":"2023-05-07T21:17:03","modified_gmt":"2023-05-07T21:17:03","slug":"tennis-lucky-loser-struff-hopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/tennis-lucky-loser-struff-hopes\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis-Lucky loser Struff hopes Madrid run marks a turning point in his career"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Fernando Kallas<\/p>\n

MADRID (Reuters) – Jan-Lennard Struff is hoping his run to the Madrid Open final against world number two Carlos Alcaraz will mark a turning point in his career.<\/p>\n

“It was an incredible journey that felt a lot longer than two weeks here in Madrid,” the German, who became the first lucky loser to reach the final of a Masters 1000 event, told a news conference after Alcaraz beat him 6-4 3-6 6-3 on Sunday.<\/p>\n

“Of course I would have liked to have gone all\u00a0the\u00a0way but I am proud of what I accomplished. I hope it’s a turning point in my career and pushes me a lot\u00a0going\u00a0forward.”<\/p>\n

Struff’s run to the final was part of a remarkable turnaround in fortune for the German, who dropped outside the top 100 last year but is back up to 65th after reaching the quarter-finals of last month’s Monte\u00a0Carlo\u00a0Masters.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old claimed a 4-6 6-3 6-4 semi-final victory over Russia’s Aslan Karatsev on Friday, days after losing to the same opponent in the final round of qualifying. <\/p>\n

Despite his defeat in the qualifier, Struff was added to the main draw after a late withdrawal and enjoyed a fine run, ousting world number five Stefanos Tsitsipas in the quarter-finals.<\/p>\n

In the final, he was relentless and forced Alcaraz to play his best to come up with the win in three sets in a packed Caja Magica supporting the Spaniard.<\/p>\n

“If you told me two weeks ago that I would have reached the final and played the way I did against Carlos Alcaraz, I would sign it right away,” Struff said.<\/p>\n

“I have played him twice before and I knew I had to be more aggressive than him. He is a tennis player that can be given space. So I tried to bring it on to him but when he broke me he broke me really well and he was too strong\u00a0in\u00a0the\u00a0end.”<\/p>\n

\n

(Reporting by Fernando Kallas; editing by Clare Fallon)<\/p>\n

\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ4608C-VIEWIMAGE\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Fernando Kallas MADRID (Reuters) – Jan-Lennard Struff is hoping his run to the Madrid Open final against world number two Carlos Alcaraz will mark a turning point in his career. “It was an incredible journey that felt a lot longer than two weeks here in Madrid,” the German, who became the first lucky loser […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":37322,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1219],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-sports"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportSportsNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ4608C-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37321"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37323,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37321\/revisions\/37323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}