08.06.2019 13:31:11 | “We did a great job despite all changes to challengers introduced by ITF and ATP. We were surprised a little at the beginning but I think we can be satisfied. It seemed at times that even the ATP supervisor didn’t know for sure who was going to qualify for the main event. However, none of the novelties affected our tournament. We even managed the increase the field to 48 players without a problem even though we had to organize more matches.
On the other hand there was almost no qualification: it only involved four players. As compared to the previous years we were lucky with the weather. Anyway, we are safe because we have the retractable roof. We were sorry for the Czech players: Jiri Veselý, Lukáš Rosol and Adam Pavlásek were ousted at the beginning and the situation from the last year when we did not have any Czech representative in the final singles rounds was repeated. Thirteen Czechs appeared in the main event. We gave almost all wild cards to young players again and I believe they gained some experience which they will be able to use in the next seasons. Jiří Lehečka won the singles first round, played the doubles final and Vít Kopřiva did also well. Our fifteen-year old junior Ondra Válek as well as sixteen-year old Dan Siniakov played the qualification.
