After an hour and 15 minutes Brunstrom/Nielsen could cheer: They won the first set 6:3m, lost the second 3:6 but got the match-tie-break 10:6.

On their way to the finals they had beat the two Scandinavians Karol Beck /Igor Zelenay (Slovakia), then the HeilbronnOpen 2008 doubles winners, the Thai twins Sanchai and Sonchat Ratiwatana 6:4, 7:5 and at last came out on top in the semi-final against Martin Emmrich (Düsseldorf) and his Swedish partner Andreas Siljestrom 6:2, 6:4.

Huey/Inglot now can be pleased to have reached the finals and gained 3.100 Euros and 65 points.

In a high-class final the No. 6 of the German Ranking of his age group (1994) and seeded No. 1 at Talheim won against his opponent, the one year younger Vincent Thierry Schneider from Rhineland-Palatinate, playing for BASF TC Ludwigshafen, 4:6, 6:2, 7:6(3). Yannick Staschen – serving for the TeV Oldenburg – lost his first set during the tournament (4:6) but he reached the decisive set with 6:2. Here the favorite lead 5:2 but Vincent Thierry Schneider took four games in a row and suddenly lead 6:5. Now it was difficult for Staschen but he saved himself into a tie-break and succeeded 2:1, 6:2, 7:3.

During the award ceremony Steeb managing director Gerd Scheuerer handed out the wildcard for next year’s qualifying to the winner. In 2013 the INTERSPORT HeilbronnOpen will take place for the 30^th time.

In an incredibly exciting match which lasted two hours and 27 minutes the player from Mannheim won on Saturday afternoon against Dominik Meffert (Aachen) 3:6, 6:3, 7:6(3) at the Tennis Center Talheim.
For the tenth time Björn Phau (1,75 m) is swinging his racket at Talheim – until today he always had to leave during or after the second round. But this time he has reached the finals although he had to surrender to Dominik Meffert (1,98) in the first set after 42 minutes 3:6. In round two he turned the tables and equalled at 6:3 after 41 minutes. During the deciding set none of the professionals showed any weakness and no serve was broken so that it ended in a tie-break. Here Phau shocked his opponent with a 4:0-lightning start and had his first matchball at 6:1. Meffert fended off two of them, the third one Phau could change into 7:3 and his participation in the finals.
Here Björn Phau meets after tomorrow’s double finals, starting at 1 p.m., the winner of the second semi final, Ruben Bemelmans (Belgium) or Cedrik-Marcel Stebe (Vaihingen).

Benjamin Becker, who had won at Talheim in 2009, won the first set 6:3 after 37 minutes and was leading in the second round 5:4 and 6:5. But Cedrik-Marcel Stebe was working his way to 6:6 so that the tie-break had to bring up the decision. Stebe was successful and at 7:5 the showdown came. First Becker broke Stebe’s serve 2:1, but when he himself was leading 5:5 he had to accept a re-break to 5:5. Afterwards Becker called for his physiotherapist. But a treatment is – according to the rules – only allowed during a regular break and therefore suddenly Stebe lay ahead 6:5. After the treatment the player from Mannheim gave up – he couldn’t play any longer.

Cedrik-Marcel Stebe now meets Michael Berrer (Stuttgart) in the quarter finals in Friday’s last match.

You could have called it „his yearly visit“ because the man from Püttlingen is a kind of regular guest in the Unterland. He doesn’t especially like it to be reminded of his – single – appearance on the court, because in 1995 he lost during the first round against the French Guillaume Raoux 3:6, 4:6 (“we always had quite close matches”). But as a DTB responsible who wants to form an opinion about the present performance of the German professionals he returns happily to the Unterland every year. Two days after his return from the Australian Open he informed himself about the results of the Talheim matches and found that today seven German players will serve “and it also met my timetable, so I am here today”.

His special focus of interest is the appearance of Cedrik-Marcel Stebe (Vaihingen) against Benjamin Becker at the end of the fourth day. “His development during the last year was splendid” team-chief Kühnen acknowledged, “starting at 450 or 460 and becoming No. 85 of the ranking at the end of the year is an incredible advancement!” And Kühnen is convinced: “Cedrik-Marcel has a lot more to show, he will become even better!”

The first semi-finalists of the 29th INTERSPORT HeilbronnOpen – powered by Wilson – are the Czech Lukas Dlouhy and Alexander Waske (Frankfurt). By winning 6:4, 6:1 against Olivier Charroin (France) and Adrian Menendez-Maceiras (Spain) they qualified for the doubles semi-finals on Wednesday.

Also the HeilbronnOpen-winners 2010, the Thai twins Sanchai and Sonchat Ratiwatana won their first match at the tennis center Talheim. They defeated their opponents set on No. 1, James Cerretani (USA) and Frank Moser (Baden-Baden) 7:6(5), 6:7(6) and 10:4 and will now meet the Scandinavian duo Johan Brunstrom (Sweden) / Frederik Nielsen (Denmark) in the quarter finals.

(mps) After 65 minutes the new edition of last year’s finals had a winner:

as last year, Bastian Knittel (Ditzingen) won the first round match against Daniel Brands (Aachen) on Tuesday. After a four month injury lay-off the 28-year-old presented himself in quite a good form, „he simply was the better player“ Daniel Brands fairly and ungrudgingly commented the achievements of his opponent.

Knittel lost his first serve and Brands leaded 5:3, then the local hero secured four games in a row and so won the first set 7:5.

Round two was nearly completely dominated by „Basti“ Knittel, his opponent held serve for the first time after 5:0. Too late, because Knittel closed out the set with a solid game 6:1.

In the round of the last sixteen on Thursday Bastian Knittel now has to deal with qualifier Ruben Bemelmans. The Belgian won against Evgeny Donskoy (Russia) 6:2, 6:2 in the first round.

(mps) „That was quite good, I just achieved my aim!“ The Stuttgart professional Michael Berrer was quite relaxed after his first round match against Teymuraz Gabashvili at the 29th INTERSPORT HeilbronnOpen – powered by Wilson. But before he could enjoy his victory, the two time winner (2007, 2010) of the 125.000-Dollar Challenger at the tennis center Talheim needed three sets to suppress the 26-year-old Russian with 6:2, 3:6.

The complete match lasted an hour and 45 minutes, then Michael Berrer was one of the last sixteen. His next opponent will be the Canadian Frank Dancevic who had won against „birthday child“ Kevin Krawietz (Aachen) – he’ll be 20 today – 6:3, 6:3. „This will be a tough match, he is a complete player“ predicted the new father, whose little daughter was born a week ago.

Knock out in the first round: the British duo Jamie Delgado and Jonathan Marray, titleholder of the doubles competition, were forced to retire early on Tuesday at the Tennis Center Talheim. The boys from the British isle were defeated by the German/Czek combination Alexander Waske / Lukas Dlouhy 4:6 and 3:6. The young man from Frankfurt and his doubles partner who lives at Monte Carlo realized during the first set a quick break to lead 2:1 but then had to accept the re-break to 3:3. After the 4:4 Jonathan Marray lost his serve and the set was won by Waske/Dlouhy after 31 minutes (6:4). Also in the second round Dlouhy / Waske succeeded with two breaks 1:0 and 6:3 so that they could leave the court as winners after only 26 minutes.

Jamie Delgado and Jonathan Marray had won the doubles final of the INTERSPORT HeilbronnOpen 2011 against Frank Moser (Baden-Baden) and David Skoch (Czekoslovakia) 6:1 and 6:4.

Lukas Dlouhy and Alexander Waske now meet at 10.30 a.m. on Wednesday during the quarter finals Olivier Charroin (France) and Adrian Menendez-Maceiras(Spain) who had won against Simon Greul (Stuttgart) and Bastian Knittel (Ditzingen) on Monday (6:4, 2:6, 11:9).