Doubles to Paulson/Rikl
The Sparkasse Challenger Val Gardena South Tyrol has a surprising final on Sunday at 11 a.m.: Maks Kasnikowski from Poland defeated Italian No. 3 seed Federico Gaio 6:3, 5:7, 6:2 after 2:07 hours in the tennis hall of Ortisei this afternoon and is in his first Challenger final. The 20-year-old from Warsaw, ranked only No. 310 in the world, will challenge qualifier Lukas Klein, ranked No. 181 in the world. Klein defeated Britain's Billy Harris 6-3, 7-6 (5) to become the first player since Andreas Seppi to reach the final in Gardena-Gröden for the second year in a row. Seppi had actually reached the final three times in a row between 2012 and 2014, winning twice.
Klein won his sixth match of the tournament week today. The Slovakian had started last Sunday as a qualifier in the tournament, which is endowed with 36,000 euros. As in the quarterfinals against Enrico Dalla Valle, the Slovak did not allow a break point. He took the serve from Harris right at the start for 2:0 and quickly took a 3:0 lead. In the second set, Klein had two break points in both the seventh game and the ninth game, but he had to go into a tiebreak. In the extra set, he quickly took a 4-0 lead and converted his third match point to make it 7-5 after 1:18 hours. "It was a close match. Getting an early break helped me a lot," s
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