Not once, in the history of the competition, since its inauguration in 1901 has a player from Turkey nor Spain been in the final.
In tomorrow’s final, Turkey will be represented by Atakan Karahan (picture), who in his semi-final met Oleksandr Ponomar. The last time these two players met, Ponomar won, but today it looked like Atakan had already decided from the start that this would not happen again. The first set was a very even fight where Ponomar dominated and hit big forehands; however, he failed to create real pressure for Atakan. Towards the end of the set, some unforced errors gave the Turkish player the upper hand. It wasn’t until 6-4, 5-1 before Atakan began to show some signs of nervousness. It went to 5-2 and game point for 5-3 until Atakan pulled himself together and made the final score 6-2 in the second set.
In the second semi-final, Spaniard Martin Landaluce won in convincing style against Great Britain’s final hope Victor Frydrych. Martin took an early break in the first set and was untouchable on all of his service games. In the second set, there were long rallies, and both players kept their serve until 3-3. Martin caught the break at the magical 7th game and then did not let go of the match, which ended 6-3, 6-4.