Austrian Open in Salzburg
The PSA Challenger Tour resumption continues in Salzburg with the $6k Austrian Open from 5th to 8th Nov at the Tenniscourt Süd complex.
The tournament was originally scheduled for April at Salzburg’s Europark Shopping Mall.
Entries were restricted to residents of Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and Switzerland, with strict Covid-19 restrictions in place.
As usual, the Open is part of a week-long programme of “Austrian Squash Challenge” events organised by Austria’s top player Aqeel Rehman.
Aqeel Rehman reports, photos from Andreas Schaad
The Austrian Open Champion 2020 is Farkas Balázs (WRL 99) from Hungary. The 23 year old number two seed secured the title after a 3/1 win over top seed Daniel Mekbib (WRL 70).
The first two games were crucial and close. Most rallies were highly contested, both players showed amazing racket and retrieving skills. It was not a surprise that both games were decided evenly in the tiebreak after a total of nearly 40 min.
From then on Balázs was able to keep the quality up more, while Mekbibwas not happy about some mistakes and referee decisions and thereforewas battling not just against his opponent anymore.
But still the intensity was very high and both players were pickingnearly every possible shot and the Mekbib kept pushing to close the gap, but Balázs stayed calm and seemed not be influenced by any circumstance and took the match 10/12, 14/12, 11/1, 11/5 after 56 min of play.
All matches took place at the Tenniscourt Süd in Salzburg, Gneis and were broadcast live on Facebook. Spectators were not allowed.
I am very thankful that due to the Covid-19 Pandemic it was still possible to hold this professional tournament. Many, many thanks to all sponsors and supporters that made everything possible. And of course I want to thank all volunteers and organising staff that guaranteed a smooth tournament and hope that every spectator was able to enjoy the matches from home.
Semis : Top seeds Mekbib and Farkas through to final in Salzburg
Today the semifinals of the Austrian Open took place at Tenniscourt Süd in Salzburg, Gneis. Close matches were to expected, as all top four players had qualified for the semis.
The first semifinal match took place between second seed Farkas Balazs and number four seed Yannik Omlor. Farkas won this thrilling match 3-1 with intense rallies and great court coverage from
both players.
The second semifinal was also a close encounter between the local hero and third seed Aqeel Rehman and top seed Daniel Mekbib. The tournament favorite Daniel was very dominant from the beginning on while the Austrian Champion could not show his best performance even though he could close the gap in after winning the third game. However the Czech stayed focused and eventually won the match 3-1 while Aqeel missed the chance to reach his third
final in his home tournament.
