It had already been a long day at the Danderyd Challenger as play started at 10 am local time and the third match (out of five) on Centre Court wasn’t even completed yet at about 6:30 pm. First it was a three-set battle of Elmer Moller and Adrian Oetzbach, then another classic between Billy Harris and Alexander Blockx. The organizers were sort of desperate for an early finish between Maximilian Neuchrist and Petr Nouza, which would allow them to finally draw the qualifiers in and release the schedule for the next day.
But the beauty of the tennis scoring system and Neuchrist saving a match point in the second set led to yet another decider. Thankfully, the fans were soon awarded for their patience with perhaps the best point of the season. Nouza tried to rush to the net after his return and was lobbed by the Austrian. He managed to find a great response in a tweener lob, after which Neuchrist’s chances of winning the rally seemed over.
The 32-year-old tracked down the lob though and responded with a tweener of his own, this one being more of a passing shot. Nouza caught it with his racket and seemed to have finished off the point (again) with a drop volley, but Neuchrist hustled to get there and found a sharp angle to cap this sensational rally off with a bang. He then bowed down to the crowd and proceeded to take the match 6-7 7-6 6-3, becoming the last qualifier in Danderyd. Nouza will at least have the satisfaction of being a part of the rally of the Challenger season. A vital part as it wouldn’t have been half as good without his initial tweener lob.
CHALLENGER POINT OF THE YEAR, no competition.
📷: @ATPChallenger pic.twitter.com/5tsD19BgRW— Damian Kust (@damiankust) November 13, 2023
