For almost 40 years, the European Senior Open in Seefeld has served as a high-profile curtain raiser to the European senior tennis season. This year, the popular indoor tournament welcomed 542 players from 30 nations, making it once again one of the biggest international tennis events in the world.
With 21 different age categories in action across men’s and women’s events, the tournament is split between two weeks, with the super seniors taking centre stage during the first of those. Sixth seeded German Alfred Boeckl won the popular Men’s 65s event after a hotly-contested 7-5 6-7(5) 6-2 win over Mats Lilja of Sweden. Boeckl also ended the reign of defending champion Peter Marklstorfer in the quarterfinals. In the Men’s 70s event, home player Sigurd Fragner repeated his title-winning run of last year, but came within a hair’s breadth of defeat in a 4-6 7-6(3) 6-2 final win over compatriot Hans-Dietrich Heissel.
Peter Pokorny added another title for Austria in extending his record-breaking total of European titles to 36 by conceding just eight games in his five match run to the Men’s 75s tournament, which included a 6-0 6-0 win over defending champion Klaus Haas (GER) in the final.
The Men’s 80s saw unseeded German Gerhard Coldeway accelerate away from Pal Arneborg (SWE) for a 7-5 6-1 win, while Angelo Sala (ITA) reclaimed the 85’s title by beating Jean Desmet (BEL) by an identical scoreline.
Some familiar names were in the women’s winners circle; in a repeat of last year’s final Heidi Eisterlehner (GER) defended her Women’s 65s title with a 6-3 6-2 win over compatriot Silvia Bauwens. The win is Eisterlehner’s 14th singles title in Seefeld. One of the few players in the world to have won even more titles than Eisterlehner is Heide Orth, and she extended her tally to 43 major (European or World) titles with a 6-2 6-2 win over Switzerland’s Susy Burggraf.
Elisabeth van Boemmel made it a hat-trick of Women’s 75s victories, breezing past Inge Delamare (FRA) to claim yet another German title. Brigitte Jung then made it four wins out of four for German super-seniors, ousting 2014 champion Ilse Michael to claim to Women’s 80s crown.
The second week saw the younger age groups enter the spotlight, and saw a mixture of new and old champions emerge as victors. Former world champion Annette Zweck of Germany claimed her first Seefeld title with a 6-3 6-1 win over Darina Bednarova (SVK) in the Women’s 35s final. Czech wild card Sylvia Himper upset top seed Ana Salas Lozano (ESP) en route to the women’s 40s title, for which she beat Monika Errolat (GER) in the final match.
Another wild card, Lucie Schwab, recorded a home win in the Women’s 45s thanks to a 6-1 7-5 win over Natalia Harina-Beckmann (GER). Fellow Austrian Ingrid Gutmann-Resch was disappointed in her quest to win a fifth consecutive Women’s 50s title, falling at the final hurdle to Olga Shaposhnikova 6-1 7-6(5).
Top seed Barbara Koutna recovered from a nightmare first set to outlast Katalin Boerecz (HUN) 1-6 6-2 7-6(7) and claim the Women’s 55s crown, while Renata Tomanova of Germany put in a dominant display to win the women’s 60s title for the loss of just seven games in total across her four matches.
In the Men’s 35s, unseeded Luca Serena of Italy ended the reign of defending champion Jan Hejtmanek with a 6-1 6-3 win in the final. Germany’s Matthias Mueller suffered a third consecutive final defeat in Seefeld as Thomas Schiessling (AUT) edged a tight first set before securing a 7-6(3) 6-3 win.
Germany’s Christoph Back beat top seed and defending champion Jorgen Aberg (SWE) in the quarterfinals on his way to the Men’s 45s title, but 2014 winner Gerald Kaiser was more successful in his defence of the Men’s 50s crown, beating top seed Viljo Tanganelli of Italy for the loss of just three games. Rounding off the action, Pierre Godfroid of Belgium scored another title defence in the Men’s 55s, extending his impressive résumé to include 12 European titles with a 7-6(6) 6-2 win over Sweden’s Christer Lundberg.
Full draws and results from the super seniors event can be found on the ITF website here, with week 2 results here.
Click here for a photo gallery from the tournament.