Melzer
Last serve for Austria's tennis ace Jürgen Melzer. At the ATP-500 in the town hall, the 40-year-old says goodbye in doubles.
After 21 seasons in professional tennis and five career titles, the Lower Austrian grabs the racket again in front of a home crowd and serves in the Wiener Stadthalle. But not individually. Melzer, who has been sports director of the Austrian Tennis Association since the beginning of the year, serves again in doubles.
For this, Melzer was able to win a prominent partner in Alexander Zverev. The German is currently number four in the world rankings and won Olympic gold in Tokyo.
“I wrote to him, and he immediately said yes. The idea of playing my last tournament with me is good for him. He was there straight away,” said the now 40-year-old on “ORF”, how the celebrity partner Choice has come. “But I'm also very grateful. And I hope it won't just be a match,” smiled Melzer.
Zverev leads a strong field of participants in the individual competition at the Viennese tennis classic – even without the injured local hero Dominic Thiem, who had to end his season prematurely.
In addition to Zverev, four top ten players will be represented with Stefanos Tsitsipas, Matteo Berrettini and Casper Ruud. There is also a chance that Novak Djokovic could still serve in the town hall.
