Germany's young hope Justin Engel narrowly missed out on making it into the main draw of the TERRA WORTMANN OPEN. In the qualifying final on Sunday afternoon, the 17-year-old shooting star lost 4:6, 4:6 to Sebastian Ofner. The youngster was unable to earn a break point against the strong-serving Austrian during the course of the match.
Engel had prevailed against Roman Safiullin in an almost three-hour marathon match on Saturday. The teenager had already made headlines the previous week when he played his way through to the quarter-finals at the ATP tournament in Stuttgart. There he was defeated by Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime, who will also be competing in Halle.
Yannick Hanfmann is therefore the only one of the four German starters to make it through to the main draw, which starts on Monday. The man from Karlsruhe had won 6:3, 6:3 against Nicolas Jarry in the early afternoon. "The form is good. When you win the qualis, it's always a good sign," said a delighted Hanfmann afterwards. "I think the level is good. Then the victories will come automatically at some point."
Laslo Djere and Benjamin Bonzi secured the remaining two places in the main draw. The former beat Jesper De Jong 6:4, 6:0. Bonzi followed suit later and narrowly defeated the Australian Li Tu 6:4, 7:6(7). The Frenchman fended off a set point in the tie-break of the second set.
