Tennis | DTB talent Justin Engel celebrates next tournament victory

Another coup in a dream year! German tennis talent Justin Engel has secured his fourth tournament victory in 2024 and has thus made another leap in the world rankings.

After victories at the small M15 tournaments in Villach, Trier and Uslar, Justin Engel (number 663 in the world rankings) also triumphed in Cap d’Agde (M15/France) on Saturday. In the final, the 16-year-old defeated the top-seeded Frenchman Lucas Bouquet (number 594 in the world rankings), who is eleven years older.

Engel won after almost two hours 2:6, 6:2 and 6:4. In an extremely close match, the German was slightly ahead in almost all important statistics at the end, but there is potential for growth in the first serve rate, which was only 54 percent against Bouquet.

What is particularly impressive is that Engel’s success has now extended his series to ten victories in a row. The DTB youngster won in Trier last week, and now the next victory has followed.

Since the clear 1:6-2:6 defeat in the quarterfinals of Überlingen (M15) against DTB competitor Liam Gavrielides (number 558 in the world rankings), Engel has not lost a party again.

When will the knot be broken in major tournaments?

After his next success, Engel is now in his best position by far in the ATP rankings. In the new week, he will jump about 150 places and get close to the top 500.

It will be exciting to see if Engel can take the next step. He has suffered the most defeats at major tournaments at Challenger level, but players like Bulgarian Adrian Andreev (number 261 in the world rankings), Argentinian Marco Trungelliti (number 141 in the world rankings) and former top 30 player Martin Klizan from Slovakia had a hard time beating Engel and only narrowly won.