Engel, 16, becomes youngest German men's title winner since 2003
Justin Engel won his first ITF World Tennis Tour singles title at M15 Villach in Austria on Sunday, making history for his nation in doing so.
Aged just 16 years and 231 days, Engel is the youngest German man to win a professional title at any level since Mischa Zverev won the Italy 7 Satellite event in November 2003.
In fact, Engel is the youngest man to win a professional singles title at any level since Luca Nardi won M15 Sharm El Sheikh in March 2020, while the last 16-year-old man to win an ITF World Tennis Tour singles title was Shang Juncheng, who won M15 Vero Beach in October 2021.
“Wow, I can’t describe how proud I am of my first M15 win here in Villach,” Engel said in a post on social media.
As a qualifier ranked at No. 1237, the teenager defeated Top 1000 opponents in all five of his main draw matches, including top seed and world No. 478 Jerome Kym 6-3 3-6 6-3 in the final.
Engel will now far surpass his career-high ranking of No. 1227, jumping more than 300 places to inside the world’s Top 900 next Monday.
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Notable results elsewhere on the ITF World Tennis Tour include a second career title for junior world No. 3 Nicolai Budkov Kjaer at M15 Antalya in Turkiye.
He dropped just one set en route to the title, overpowering top seed Yanaki Milev of Bulgaria 6-1 6-0 in the final.
Meanwhile, Martin Klizan went back-to-back with his second title in as many weeks, taking full advantage of a wild card entry at M25 Reggio Emilia as he triumphed without dropping a set.
Klizan, 34, now jointly leads the men’s ITF World Tennis Tour in terms of singles titles won with four, equal with Jakub Nicod, Filip Cristian Jianu, Dmitry Popko, and Jaime Faria.
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