Stuttgart – Oscar Otte won his quarter-final in Stuttgart without a fight and entered a semi-final on the ATP Tour for the second time in his tennis career
The Cologne native did not have to compete at all because his opponent Benjamin Bonzi from France withdrew due to stomach pains, according to organisers. “I’ve already written to Benjamin, he’s not doing so well,” Otte said about Bonzi’s health problems. The Frenchman had gone to hospital for a check-up, he said. “I would have liked to have had a nice match in front of my home crowd. Apart from that, you have to look at it sportingly, I have to take this, I saved some strength.”
Otte will face last year’s Wimbledon finalist Matteo Berrettini in the semi-finals of the €769,645 grass-court event on Saturday. The 2019 Stuttgart winner held his own in the Italian quarter-finals against Lorenzo Sonego 3-6, 6-3, 6-4. Top ten player Berrettini is making his comeback in Stuttgart after undergoing minor wrist surgery. He had skipped the clay court season.
Otte was the only German quarter-finalist at the preparatory tournament for the grass-court classic in Wimbledon. In the first two rounds, the 28-year-old had won the German duel with Daniel Altmaier from Kempen and then surprisingly prevailed against the favoured Canadian Denis Shapovalov. Otte had reached an ATP semi-final for the first time at the clay court tournament in Munich at the end of April.
