Muster to Play Vienna

Written by: Staff on 19th October 2010

Muster to Play Vienna |

Former world no.1 Thomas Muster, now aged 43 years old and currently ranked 982 in the world, will become the oldest player to contest an event on the main ATP World Tour in nearly 15 years next week after being handed a wildcard entry into the Bank Austria Tennis Trophy in Vienna.

Muster’s comeback on the second tier Challenger circuit has been hardly earth shattering, playing six events and only registering one match victory since deciding he wanted to play tennis more competitive than the Champions Tour back in June.

Clearly the Vienna tournament director Herwig Straka, who just happens to be Muster’s manager, and his fellow organisers see the crowd drawing potential of involving a competitor who will become the oldest man to play in the top flight since Jimmy Connors played in Atlanta aged 43 years, 7 months in 1996.

Muster, who celebrated his birthday earlier this month, has previously played the Vienna indoor event 13 times, ending runner up three times, but most fans thought he had bowed out from the Wiener Stadthalle 12 years ago when he lost in the second round to Greg Rusedski.

“I’m looking forward to it enormously,” said Muster whose last match on the main tour came at the 1999 French Open, four years after he won his only Grand Slam title on the clay of Roland Garros. “I want to inspire the crowd with my fitness and fighting spirit. I’m fighting like in the good old times and I will give everything in front of the fans in Vienna.”

This year Muster has played six Challenger events at Braunschweig, Kitzbuhel, Como, Rijeja in Croatia, Ljubljana where he registered his lone victory against the 19 year-old Slovenian Borut Puc, and most recently in Palermo earlier this month when he was beaten in the first round by the 364th ranked Italian Gianluca Naso 6-3,6-0.

Leading Austrian Jurgen Melzer is set to be top seed at the Bank Austria Tennis Trophy after last year ending a 21 year wait for a home-grown champion. The Vienna native became the first Austrian to lift the trophy in the nation’s capital since the late Horst Skoff beat Muster in the 1988 final.

Topics: Atp World Tour, Austr, Austria Tennis, Bank Austria, Borut, Champions Tour, Fighting Spirit, Gianluca, Grand Slam Title, Greg Rusedski, Herwig, Jimmy Connors, Jurgen Melzer, Last Match, Lone Victory, Oldest Man, Roland Garros, Straka, Tournament Director, Wildcard Entry