Qualification in Val Gardena completed
At the Sparkasse Challenger Val Gardena Südtirol, everyone is eagerly awaiting Andreas Seppi's first appearance. The player from Caldaro will play in his last professional tournament on Tuesday in the first round at 7 pm against the number 4 seed Yannick Hanfmann from Germany (number 154 in the world). On "Super Tuesday", a total of eleven singles and one doubles are on the programme in Ortisei tomorrow from 10 am. All eight seeds are already in action, including the Azzurri Luca Nardi (number 3) and Giulio Zeppieri (number 5), who have to play a qualifier. Before the Seppi match, the Italian duel between Flavio Cobolli (number 6) and Lorenzo Giustino is on the agenda.
"I'm going into the match like I would any other tournament. I want to play a good tournament, even though the first round against Hanfmann will not be easy. I'm looking forward to the match," said Seppi, who has won twice in Gardena-Gröden (2013 and 2014), reached the final once (2012) and reached the quarter-finals in his last appearance in 2017. "Those were different times. I've been training a lot here in Gardena-Gröden lately," Seppi says. A celebration will be organised in Seppi's honour on Friday at 8.30pm. "I hope I'm still in the tournament then," says the man from Caldaro. "It's nice to play here again. It will be something special for sure."
Today, the qualification was finished in Ortisei. Frenchman Terence Atmane, Czechs Petr Nouza and Andrew Paulson, Alibek Kachmazov, Evgeny Karlovskiy (both Russia) and Sandro Kopp from Austria have secured a place in the main draw. As a lucky loser, Marius Copil from Romania will be in the main draw. The first three matches in the main draw will be played today at 5 pm.
