On his way home from Umag, Matwé Middelkoop wrote a message on LinkedIn announcing his retirement from professional tennis. It’s a pity we won’t see this passionate doubles specialist on the ATP tour or during Davis Cup matches anymore. But we did see him in Umag, where he played doubles with Inigo Cervantes of Spain. They led by a double break in the first set against Adam Pavlasek of the Czech Republic and Jan Zielinski of Poland, but unfortunately lost the first set in the tiebreak. With a break against, their opponents also took the second set, which unfortunately meant they were eliminated from the tournament in the first round (6-7(6), 4-6).
It turned out to be Matwé’s last professional match. Middelkoop is one of the few Dutch players to have managed to beat Roger Federer. He did so in the lion’s den, though, in Geneva during the Switzerland-Netherlands Davis Cup match, where he and Thiemo de Bakker defeated Roger Federer and Marco Chiudinelli in the doubles. There was also talk of retiring back then (at your peak!), but at the time it was just a joke, and there was no question of Matwé hanging up his racket. Now there is. At some point, of course, it’s over and it’s time for something new, but his fans will miss him.
The doubles event saw even more Dutch players. Bart Stevens played with Vasil Kirkov, but they too lost in the first round to Poland’s Karol Drezewicki and Taiwan’s Ray Ho (2-6, 3-6). The last pair with a Dutch player also failed to reach the first round. Sander Arends and Guido Andreozzi were the top seeds but were defeated by eventual finalists Patrik Trhac of the USA and Marcus Willis of Germany (4-6, 4-6). A contributing factor may have been the injury sustained by Sander Arends when he stumbled at high speed after attempting to retrieve a short ball and hit the referee’s chair (see the photos below). He was able to continue playing after treatment, but the extent to which the unfortunate fall affected the Dutch/American duo is unclear.
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