Jan-Lennard Struff finally makes his mark in simply superb Madrid Open run
At the age of 33, Struff unleashed his full potential in Spain’s capital, showing he can compete with the very best on tour and make deep tournament runs
Jan-Lennard Struff and Carlos Alcaraz, Madrid 2023 | © AI / Reuters / Panoramic
Just six days before the start of his epic Spanish adventure, Jan-Lennard Struff found himself on the end of a straight-sets first-round loss to World No186 Alexander Ritschard at the Bavarian Open.
It was the latest punctuation mark in a season that has been as stop-start as his career. Despite performing reasonably well on the Challenger circuit this year, Struff has struggled to make a consistent impact at ATP level.
Before making it to the quarter-finals of the Monte-Carlo Masters in April, Struff had failed to make it past the second round of an ATP-level tournament this season.
The grind of having to progress through qualifiers each week didn’t help. But that is now a thing of the past for the German – at least for the time being. It appears the seasoned Struff has turned a remarkably positive and unexpected corner.
Career-high Ranking for Struff
Following his hugely impressive run to the Madrid Open final this year, Struff now finds himself at the giddy heights of 28th in the ATP world pecking order, his highest ever career ranking.
This will enable him to have direct entry into tournaments, and the higher seeding Struff now enjoys will also help bolster his hopes of longer runs in events.
“It’s been incredible journey from Lucky Loser to be in the final, runner-up here,” Struff said in post-match press conference. “Yeah, hope so that it gives me a lot of push for the next weeks and months. Was a best-career achievement so far. Yeah, hope it pushed me a lot.”
Struff’s success at the Madrid Open this year was one of the surprise stories of the season thus far – one that no one saw coming.
A Brilliant Madrid Open Run
Having come through the qualifiers as a lucky loser, Struff put together a run of six consecutive match wins, most of which were against higher-ranked opponents, to reach his first Masters 1000-level final. It is the first time in history that a lucky loser has made it to the final of a Masters 1000 event.
Along the way, he knocked out explosive young American talent Ben Shelton, Australian Open finalist Stefanos Tsitsipas, as well as reversing his loss against Aslan Karatsev in the qualifiers.
There were some murmurings of dissatisfaction at the notion of a Struff versus Alcaraz final, with many feeling that it would be too one-sided to do a wonderful tournament justice.
But, yet again, Struff defied expectation as he went toe-to-toe with the best player on the planet right now in a gripping three-set contest. It was a spectacle worthy of Madrid’s showpiece match.
What Next for Struff?
As attention quickly turns to the next instalment of clay-court Masters 1000 drama in Rome, the question for Struff becomes how well he can back up this breakthrough run in Spain.
The realist may argue that this was a flash-in-the-pan run, the likes of which are seen from time to time – Karatsev’s surprise run to the Australian Open semi-final in 2021 comes to mind, for example.
However, as a greatly experienced tour veteran with a clay-court game capable of threatening even the game’s most formidable opponents, perhaps Jan-Lennard Struff has what it takes to give the tennis world yet another unexpected twist in the season’s narrative.
“It was a new feeling for me to be that long in tournament,” he said. “It felt like it was way longer than two weeks, I would say, because it feels like I’m four weeks in Madrid right now. But it was a great time.”
“Yeah, of course I wanted to go all the way to win the final, but I would definitely say if someone told me two weeks ago you’re gonna play the finals, I would take it, yeah, definitely.”
Seeding and confidence are useful tools he did not have in Madrid, but the lower-altitude conditions of Paris and Rome will provide their own challenges for the German. His powerful serve and loaded forehand will be blunter weapons than they were in Madrid.
Whatever comes next for Struff, there are likely to be many more eyeballs on his matches than usual. Big-name opponents will also be happy to avoid an early meeting with this year’s surprise, superb Madrid Open runner-up.
