23.05.2013 12:01:10 | The Prostějov Challenger tournament has been rated among the best in its category in the world. The UniCredit Czech Open will be held for twentieth time this year. What were the nineteen Prostějov tournaments like? How come UniCredit Czech Open has maintained such a good reputation for so long? "It's a pleasure and it's highly motivating to organize the largest Czech tournament. When looking back, we had to fight repeatedly with officials and the media about whether we're going the right way, we had to defend our tournament philosophy many times.
We proved to be right, we grew gradually, in accordance with our possibilities. We were incredibly lucky with the perfect partnership with Živnostenská banka and later the UniCredit Bank, with the prudence and visionary generosity of Jirka Kunert. The tournament has a good reputation in the world thanks to the perseverance, resolution, and definitely also the patience of Živnostenská banka, and the players like to come back. I have also emphasized many times that especially the participation of the Czech top players, meaning also, with respect to our position in the Czech tennis, the Prostějov players, is crucial for a tournament of this level," Miroslav Černošek, the head of the Prostějov tennis club says.
The Czech tennis won seven titles during the nineteen-year history – Jan Hájek won three times, Bohdan Ulihrach and Radek Štěpánek two times, Argentina celebrated three times, seeing the victories of Guillermo Coria, Sergio Roitman, and Agustin Calleri, the Hana Region also saw two Australian victories, Richard Fromberg succeeded two times. The Slovak Karol Kučera, the Italian Andrea Gaudenzi, the Russian Andrei Chesnokov, the Swede Andreas Vinciguerra, the Finn Jarkko Nieminen, the Kazakh Yuri Schukin and the German Florian Mayer last year also made the list of champions.
Lets have a look at the nineteen-year history of the Prostějov tournament.
