TROISDORF/STARNBERG, May 23, 2022

The ATP Challenger Tour is back in Germany for the inaugural Saturn Oil Open. The €45,730 clay-court tournament is being held at the TC RW-Troisdorf this week. Troisdorf is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, located approximately 22 kilometres south of Cologne and 13 kilometres north east of Bonn. Its 75,000 inhabitants make it the most populous city in the Rhein-Sieg-district.

Four qualifiers booked their spots in the main draw on Monday, headlined by Japanese teenager Shintaro Mochizuki. The 18-year-old Kawasaki native knocked off qualifying top seed Oleksii Krutykh from Ukraine 6-3, 7-5. Mochizuki saved seven of the eight break points he faced and converted three of his own seven break-point chances to advance after one hour and 45 minutes.

Mochizuki won the 2019 Wimbledon Championships Boys’ singles title after becoming the first Japanese male to reach a Grand Slam juniors singles final. In September that year, he led the Japanese team to capture the Junior Davis Cup title in Orlando, Florida. In 2021, the current World No. 399 competed in his first two ATP Tour main draws at the Singapore Tennis Open as well as at the ATP Masters 1000 Miami Open.

In other action, No. 2 seed Lukas Klein cruised past Hady Habib of Lebanon 6-1, 6-3 in only 53 minutes, Remy Bertola from Switzerland rallied from a set down to overcome Malek Jaziri from Tunisia 4-6, 6-0, 6-3 and home favourite Lucas Gerch defeated 17-year-old Frenchman Arthur Fils 7-6(5), 6-3. The remaining two matches of the qualifying final round as well as the start of the main draw had to be postponed to Tuesday due to rain.