Mozart Open men: Robin Gadola ends home hopes by beating Austrian Champion Aqeel Rehman

After a big win from Austrian Champion and event organiser Aqeel Rehman (WRL 138) in the first round of the Mozart Open he could not repeat a surprise in the quarterfinal against a strong Robin Gadola (SUI, WRL 108). An again packed crowd supported their local favorite massive, but the fifth seed swiss showed a too clinical performance.

However the first game record 16-times Austrian National Champion Aqeel Rehman was not able to benefit from a 10/8 lead in the opening game, which could have made an impact on the further match progress. But in the end his opponent had always the better answers to even very good shots and made him self very hard to beat.

Still the spectators saw a great match and were excited by the player’s skills. It was a thrilling atmosphere at EUROPARK Salzburg shopping mall.

Since fourth seed and twice runner-up of the PSA world ranking tournament in Salzburg Yannick Wilhelmi (SUI, WRL 100) also won his quarterfinal match against fresh Czech Champion Jakub Solnicky (WRL 128) it will be an all-swiss semifinal between Yannick Wilhelmi and Robin Gadola – a repeat of the quarterfinal of last year where Yannick managed to come back from 0/2 down.

The second semifinal will be played between Miko Ajianen (FIN, WRL 159), who won this tournament in 2019, and topseed Simon Herbert (ENG, WRL 78).

While unseeded Miko Ajianen caused his second upset in a row, this time taking out third seed Daniel Poleshchuk (ISR, WRL 99), Simon Herbert did not drop a single game yet in the tournament and therefore justified his top position in the draw.

Here are the full results of the quarterfinals:

15:30 Miko Aijanen (FIN, WRL 159) – [3] Daniel Poleshchuk (ISR, WRL 99) – 14/12, 5/11, 11/7, 11/3 53min
16:30 [1] Simon Herbert (ENG, WRL 78) – [8] Robert Downer (ENG, WRL 126) – 11/8, 11/8, 11/7 34 min
17:30: [4] Yannick Wilhelmi (SUI, WRL 100) – Jakub Solnicky (CZE, WRL 128) – 11/3, 7/11, 11/9, 11/9 51min
18:30: [5] Robin Gadola (SUI, WRL 109) – Aqeel Rehman (AUT, WRL 138) 13/11, 11/4, 11/6 35min

Semifinal line-up for Friday:

18:00: [1] Simon Herber (ENG, WRL 78) – Miko Aijanen (FIN, WRL 159)
19:30: [4] Yannik Wilhelmi (SUI, WRL 100) – Robin Gadola (SUI, WRL 109)

There will be again livescoring offered on this website as well as on the PSA World Tour.

Admission is as usual free of charge!

All pictures are free to use under the reference of our photigrapher Jasmin Walter. More pictures can be found in the gallery.