The Croatia Open in Umag has started! A wonderful tournament where many tennis players have experienced their breakthrough in the professional Atp-circuit. Only two years ago it was Carlos Alcaraz who participated as number 78 in the world ranking and won his first Atp tournament title here. He now has twelve titles, including two Grand Slams (US Open in 2022 and Wimbledon this year) and four Masters-1000 and is number 1 in the world. We previously wrote about Umag as the starting point of great tennis careers. This year, however, no Alcaraz, or Sinner and, despite the announcement of his participation, no Holger Rune either, but very big names from the tennis generation that preceded them. And that is unique, because the fate of Umag as a 250 tournament is that the top players often opt for the larger tournaments, unless the surface fits well into their game schedule. And in that respect, the clay tournament of Umag is somewhat unfavourable on the tennis calendar, because after Roland Garros and before the US Open, which is played on hard court. It was therefore great that last year, despite their breakthrough to the absolute world top, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner were not only present, but also faced each other in the final.
This year, however, no less than three grand slam winners can be admired in the tournament: Marin Cilic (US Open 2014), Stanislav Wawrinka (Australian Open 2014, Roland Garros 2015 and US Open 2016) and Dominic Thiem (US Open 2020). All three of them are also former winners of the tournament in Umag. Wawrinka won in 2006, Cilic in 2012 and Thiem in 2015. If Pablo Cuevas had managed to qualify, even five former winners would have joined the tournament because Cuevas also won the title in Umag. That was in 2014 after a long injury and in 2018 Marco Cecchinato was the winner and he has joined the tournament this year as well. Tennisphotoworld will be here in Umag all week to report on the progress of the matches and additional events, because although Umag breathes tennis, there is more than just tennis in Umag!
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