17-year-old Oskari Paldanius, who rose in the junior world rankings, was selected for the Davis Cup for the first time.
Jussi Vainikka,
Maija Kautto
The Finnish national tennis team will go to the Davis Cup match in Austria at the turn of January-February with the number one name Otto Virtanen and Harri Heliövaara.
Those previously seen in the team are also involved Eero Vasa and Patrik Niklas-Salminen. As a new player, the ninth ranked player in the under-18 world rankings was chosen for the team Oskari Paldanius17.
National team captain Jarkko Nieminen describes Paldanius, who made a strong rise on the Junior list, to become a comprehensive player.
– It has been a while since there has been a junior-age player in the team. Oskar has been developing brilliantly all along. The most promising juniors who keep pace with international tennis like that have often made their debut at the age of 17–18, and now it’s Oskar’s turn, Nieminen tells Urheilu.
Has been in the position of Finland’s number one player for a long time Emil Ruusuvuori already said earlier that he will not participate in the opening matches of the Davis Cup. He took a break from playing in September and is slowly returning to the playing fields. Also Austria’s number one player Sebastian Ofner is sidelined for matches.
If Finland beats Austria away from home, it advances to the second qualifying round of the tournament, i.e. to the top 16. The winner will face the winner of the Canada-Hungary match in the fall.
Austria’s pitch fights have spoken in advance, as the matches are rarely played in large numbers in the hall. The platform in question cannot be found anywhere in Finland, but it is not the most familiar platform for Austrians either.
– They feel that they benefit from the choice of platform more than we do. We have had good success recently in fast conditions and we can play well in mass. It doesn’t bother us, Nieminen says.
Nieminen sees the pair of matches against Austria as even. Finland is ranked 13th in the world, Austria ranked 24th.