The defending champions from Prostějov dominated the tennis extraliga, in the final they had to reverse the score

From 11 to 16 December, the MONETA Tennis Extraliga 2022 by Ostra took place. The final duel took place on the hard surface in the hall in Říčany and the teams RPM Spoje Praha and TK Agrofert Prostějov competed. Although the team from the capital city was leading, they did not reach the title. After a turnaround in the score, the players of the club from Haná defended the championship from last year.

While the Prostějov tennis players started in the regular group, the Prague players had to start their journey through the competition in the preliminary round. They defeated TK Most 5:1 and did well in the following matches. In the Czech capital, they beat I.ČLTK 5:2 and Sparta 5:4.

Their opponent in the finals was Prostějov, who did well on home soil. First, the charges of the daviscup captain Jaroslav Navrátil defeated TK PRECHEZA Přerov 6::3 and then LTC Pardubice 5::1.

Friday’s clash for the title started with two simultaneous singles matches. In the women’s one, Jesika Malečková from Spoj won against Julia Štruplová after two different sets 6: 0 and 7: 6.

The men’s singles, however, brought the overall score to 1::1, as the one from the middle of the fifth hundred succeeded in the match of tennis players separated by more than a thousand places on the ATP rankings. David Poljak, whose opponent was Jiří Jeníček, enjoyed his first Prostějov final victory after partial results of 7::6 and 6::2.

After the next two duels, however, the Prague team led 3::1. World number 19 Ekaterina Alexandrova defeated the talented 16-year-old Sara Bejlek 6: 0, 6: 2 and Matěj Vocel defeated 17-year-old hope Jakub Mensik twice 7: 5.

After that, however, only the representatives of the Moravian club won. First, Jiri Lehecka reduced the deficit, who won 6::3 and 7::6 against Petr Nusa, then Vitaly Sachko, who won the match with Toby Alex Kodat by the same score, tied the score at 3::3.

So the decision came down to the doubles. Bejlek and Štruplová challenged Malečková and Miriam Kolodziejová playing alongside her. The duel went to a super tiebreak, in which the first-named, Prostejovian pair succeeded. The final score of the match was 7::5, 4::6 and 10::5.

The next triumph of TK Agrofert was already a winning point. Poljak and Ukrainian Sachek took care of it by defeating Nouza and American Kodat 6: 4 and 6: 3. The simultaneous doubles match Lehečka, Mensik – Vocel, Jebavý, which was better played by the young duo from Prostějov, did not need to be finished.

With the overall final victory 6::3 Prostějov club defended the championship trophy from the previous year and confirmed that it is the most successful extraliga participant. The Hanaks reached the championship despite the fact that the originally promised performance of the tennis star Belinda Bencic was prevented by the illness of the Swiss.

The non-playing captain Navrátil had to deal with other absences as well. “I am very happy that the title is back in Prostějov after a year, because we were struggling with many injuries. Many players were affected, like Veselý, Kolář, Kopřiva, Svrčina. These are almost all Davis Cup players,” he said in an interview on Nova Sport 1.

Source: Tennis Extraliga, Tennis World, Nova Sport 1