ASCHAFFENBURG, July 23, 2019 (by Dietmar Kaspar)

Despina Papamichail triumphed at the 12th edition of the Schönbusch Open International Bavarian Ladies Open – flowered by 1000gutegruende.de, which was held at the venue of the TC Schönbusch Aschaffenburg e.V. The ITF World Tennis Tour W25 event, which offered a total prize money of $25,000, is part of the German Masters Series presented by Wilson.

The 26-year-old Greek advanced in all her matches in three sets. In the semi-finals, she prevented the third consecutive final appearance of German Katharina Hobgarski on the ITF Pro Circuit. 22-year-old Hobgarski, who entered the competition on position two, reached the title matches at the W25 Denain and W60 Versmold tournaments in the last two weeks. After losing the first set, unseeded Papamichail came back to seal the win by the score of 2-6, 6-4, 6-2 after 93 minutes.

Tournament’s No. 6 Jule Niemeier is also on a good run. After reaching the stage of the final four at the ITF W60 event in Versomold last week, she booked a spot in the title match. In the all-German semi-final encounter, the 19-year-old Dortmund native battled past No. 6 seed Katharina Gerlach, winning 6-3, 4-6, 6-1. The encounter lasted two hours and eight minutes.

Capitalizing on seven of her 13 break point chances by losing four service games in the championship match, Papamichail secured a 6-2, 5-7, 6-2 victory after two hours and eights minutes. The Athens native lifted her 14th singles trophy on the ITF World Tennis Tour.