For his 19th birthday

Schwärzler gave himself the best present ever

Joel Schwärzler gave himself a present by making it into the main draw.

(Bild: GEPA pictures)

Austria's great tennis hope Joel Schwärzler celebrated his 19th birthday on Monday. Instead of a lavish party, however, a hard piece of work awaited the Vorarlberg native. In the qualifying final of the ATP Challenger in Piracicaba (Bra), the world No. 330 had to stand on the clay court for 2:34 hours against local hero Pedro Boscardin Dias before he could finally celebrate.

Joel Schwärzler's relief was clear to see when he was able to convert his first match point after 134 minutes to win 2:6, 6:3, 6:4 against the Brazilian, who is currently ranked 497th in the world.
In the first set, the birthday boy had a chance to break in the second game, but missed it. Boscardin Dias was different, taking Schwärzler's serve on his second chance to make it 2:1 and quickly put the score at 3:1. The Vorarlberg player then reduced the deficit to 2:3, but after a further break, the 21-year-old local hero served out to win the set 6:2 after 47 minutes.

Second marathon match in just 24 hours
In the second round, Joel, who had fought his way to a 5:7, 6:3, 7:6 (7) victory over Argentina's Leonardo Aboian in the first qualifying round in a match that lasted almost three hours, improved considerably and quickly pulled 4:1 ahead with a break. Although the Brazilian managed to break back to 3:4, Schwärzler immediately broke him again and broke his serve to make it 6:3 after 46 minutes.

The match was then decided in the seventh game of the third set. After Boscardin Dias had made two double faults, it was suddenly 40:15 for Schwärzler - who missed the first two chances to break, but was then able to strike at the third attempt and thus left the clay court as a deserved winner after just over two and a half hours.