Doubles from the US Open final directly to China

At the US Open, Kevin Krawietz and Tim Pütz achieved the greatest success of their doubles career. Shortly after losing the final, they were faced with travel stress – they had clear words.

Kevin Krawietz and Tim Pütz didn’t want to miss out on the “one or two beers” as they left New York. But the German duo had no time to rest or celebrate lavishly after the greatest success of their doubles career together. In a crazy tennis odyssey, they went straight from the narrowly lost US Open final to the Davis Cup in China.

“The planning is a disaster. Unfortunately, we can’t change it, we have no influence on it,” Krawietz complained about the scheduling of the organizers of the international team competition. “From the players’ point of view, that’s bad.”

This is what the travel stress looks like for both of them: Departure from New York on Sunday shortly before 3 p.m. 16-hour journey to Hong Kong. Half a day lost due to the time difference. Arrival on Monday around 7 p.m. Continued journey to Zhuhai, China. Tuesday doubles in the Davis Cup against Slovakia.

“We’re trying to be as professional as possible and as fresh as possible on the court on Tuesday,” said Krawietz. “We’re still going to take it, we’re still up for the team. We like playing for Germany, we like playing Davis Cup.”

The 32-year-old and his doubles partner, who is four years older, lost 4:6, 6:7 (4:7) in the final of the US Open against the Australian duo Max Purcell and Jordan Thompson. In the second round, they were not too far from equalizing the set. “We are disappointed that we lost, but also proud that we have come this far,” said Pütz. “It’s a mixture of the two.”

They were the first German men’s doubles team to reach the final, but were unable to enter their name on the winners’ list. The only German tennis player to have achieved this so far was Philipp Petzschner, who won the tournament in 2011 with Austrian Jürgen Melzer. Krawietz had won the French Open title twice with his former doubles partner Andreas Mies.

“A great success,” enthused Dietloff von Arnim, President of the German Tennis Association, about their entry into the final. “We hope that, despite the upcoming travel stresses, they can maintain their great form in the group phase of the Davis Cup in China.” The German team can normally always rely on the duo known as “KraPütz”: they have won ten of their eleven joint appearances in the traditional team competition so far.

“We want to win it at some point, hopefully with Sascha,” said Krawietz. Unlike the doubles match in China, Alexander Zverev, known as Sascha, is not taking part. The DTB justified this with “travel strains.” These are also so great for Zverev because the German number one will be competing in the Laver Cup in Berlin immediately afterward.

The fact that China was chosen as host but is not competing in Zhuhai with its own team has also been the subject of criticism. “It is certainly not ideal to be held directly after a Grand Slam in North America,” said Pütz in New York. However, he does not want to make a final judgement in advance. “Maybe we will leave and say: they really made a great effort, it was great, it was a cool event with enthusiastic spectators. Maybe we will also leave and say: there were only twelve spectators per game and nobody was interested.