There are a couple of  players on the tour that you rarely will see on TV but kinda jump out of the frame just like Fabrice Santoro does amongst the more known ones, one of them for instance could be the time travelling Falvio Cipolla with his old school touch game or Dusan Vemic, Sergiy Stakhovsky and Rohan Bopanna, each for a different reason. The following is about the Austrian number two, arguably the most combustible guy on the tour who keeps collecting point after point at the Challenger level just as he is collecting enemies, doesn't seem to bother him too much actually looks more like the contrary could be true.

Let's not get confused here, I confess that I admire the tennis of Roger Federer, well who doesn't? Novak Djokovic might not have the same crowd following as Roger but I guess this will change as he is not only a great player but an outstanding entertainer, so naturally one would look forward to a final of the two, well if it would be a major. This was the Cincinnati "insert some bank or insurance company name here" Masters 1000 though and so while waiting for the broadcast from Cincinnati to start I had a look at the web cast streaming from Trani.

You might well ask Trani, where is that?
Well it's some village in south eastern Italy, where at the local country club they had set up a metal construction for tribunes, and they were packed and overflowing with taunting whistling and swearing well let's call them people. It was the final day of the Trani Challenger, and the noise coming from the stands was against Daniel Köllerer more that than a rooting of tifosi for the Italian Filippo Volandri. The images running on the screen were so surreal that I skipped the Federer Djokovic match and watched the Challenger final (I managed to see the end of Federer's win though). On the Trani broadcast there was no need for any commentary (not that there was any) since the continuous discussions between the players, the unpair and the players, the players and the spectators or audience and Köllerer and the Supervisor in the atmosphere of a Brazilian jungle Davis Cup match were sufficiently intriguing.

Number two is not enough.
Koellerer is a quite known figure to the people of the Italian challenger tournaments, played 5 or 6 of them this year, has had a fist fight after a match some years ago and has been suspended cuz of his behaviour by the ATP already twice, the last time for 6 months in 2006, about 70 pros even signed a paper to kick him off the tour... he is now ranked around number 60 and is the Austrian number 2. Despite that he just can't find his way into the Davis Cup team, probably cuz if he would display is usual demeanor in Chile his team mates might well have a reason to fear some actions against their personal safety by the Chilean fans.

Daniel Köllerer

At 26 years of age (born on August 17, 1983 in Wels) Köllerer might now well have reached the peak of his career and so his disapointment regarding the team captain's decison is understandable, aparently the reason for his exclusion is Köllerer's behavior in a doubles match recently played in Umag against the Austrian Davis Cup doubles pairing Melzer - Knowle.
Considering his successful Challenger tournaments though it might well be that he will unravel his chaos, acrimony and adversity also more frequently on the bigger tournaments of the ATP tour next year and climb the rankings some more maybe even close to the top 50, if they let him do it that is.

W!#€* v@ F@^ Cv£0 !/]i§t !!! etc.
But back to the Trani challenger final, you have to imagine Herr Koellerer as somewhat of a mix between McEnroe's and Tarango's temper but multiply the two and then square the result, Muster's fighting spirit and traditional Hispanic "dirtballing" skills plus a pretty decent backhand drop shot and remain sure that he is one of the world's leading experts on Brad Gilbert's winning ugly, sincerely one thinks he must have been quite a brat but different sources report that off court he can be a very nice guy. Koellerer has no problems bringing his opponent to white heat and hate him from his guts, usually not much different from most of the crowd's feelings, out of which he frequently picks people to argue with on a personal basis. All thais is accompanied by cursing and self incitement in Italian as well as frequent use of vulgar Austrian swearing that makes the traditional English four later words that normally would get you warnings look like kindergarten twittering, the Australian umpair obviously did not understand Austrian. If there was any more need for proof of Koellerer's broad ego one might consider this, for the first part of the match the public's enemy wore a white shirt with Koellerer written in large letters on his back...

Alone against the tifosi.
The result of the match was never really in question, Köllerer did not have to outplay his opponent, playing his "hate me show" with the crowd driving Volandri nuts was enough and in the end the scoreboard declared 6:3 7:5 accompanied by a whistling and booing concert under a shower of plastic bottles et similia while Koellerer bowed down to the audience, like some Kinski played Karajan.

Before the prize giving a brawl between the finalists was almost about to build up under the aptly notes of "we are the champions", then Volandri got his silver statuette, a watch and the supersized cheque and declared that "contrary to the usual he would not congratulate the winner", a roaring applause followed his words and the guy presenting the trophy said that "for all of us you are the real winner Filippo", clearly an objective point of view in front of a straight sets defeat. Then he introduced the winner adding that Köllerer probably won't talk, probably hoping so, but Koellerer in a humble tone thanked all the ball kids, umpairs, lines men, supervisors, people from the organization, security, transportation, catering and what not finishing with a "grazie mille buona sera". Then smilingly he received the cup from mayor Pinuccio Tarantino and before he left he might well have signed an autograph to the lone guy shouting "Forza Koellerer!"

Daniel Köllerer let's his Head fly

Watch the Trani final at www.e-tennis.tv simply open the web-TV then click on DEMAND and browse through the program till the final day, part two of the final is the more interesting part.

The Challenger Tour.
The Italian Challenger circuit consist of 26 tournaments, mostly held on clay though there are a few on hard courts and also indoor carpets, by number of tournaments that it is even more than the 19 Challenger Tournaments played in the USA and more than in Spain, but Spain has quite a few more Future tournaments and clay is not so dominant there, perhaps an other reason for the number of quality players coming out of the Spanish academies, since many there don't play much on the juniors circuit but go directly to the Futures and then Challengers.

The 26 Challenger Tournaments held in Italy in 2009 and the respective finals

Bergamo, indoor carpet (play it): 02.03.2009 Lukas Rosol - Benedik Dorsch 7-6(6), 6-1
Caltanissetta, clay: 16.03.2009 Jesse Huta Galung - Thiemo De Baker 2-6, 6-4, 6-3
Barletta, clay: 23.03.2009 Ivo Minar - Santiago Ventura 3-6, 6-2, 6-1
Napoli TC, clay: 30.03.2009 Pablo Cuevas - Victor Crivoi 7-6(2), 6-4
Monza, clay: 06.04.2009 David Marrero - Antonio Veic 7-5, 7-5
Roma - Rai, clay: 13.04.2009 Sebastian Decoud - Simon Greul 6-1, 6-3
Roma - T.C Garden, clay: 20.04.2009 Daniel Köllerer - Andreas Vinciguerra 6-2, 7-6(7)
San Remo, clay: 04.05.2009 Kevin Anderson - Blaz Kavcic 3-6, 6-3, 6-1
Cremona, hard court: 18.05.2009 Benjamin Becker - Izak Van Der Merwe 7-6(3), 3-6, 6-2
Alessandria, clay: 25.05.2009 Blaz Kavcic - Jesse Levine 6-0, 7-5
Milano, clay: 15.06.2009 Alessio Di Mauro - Vincent Millot 7-5, 6-2
Reggio Emilia, clay: 22.06.2009 Paolo Lorenzi - Jean Rene Lisnard 7-5, 1-6, 6-3
Torino, clay: 29.06.2009 Potito Starace - Maximo Gonzalez 6-2, 6-4
San Benedetto, clay: 06.07.2009 Fabio Fognini - Cristian Villagran 6-2, 6-2
Rimini, clay: 13.07.2009 Thomaz Bellucci - Juan Pablo Brzezicki 6-7(1), 6-2, 6-2
Recanati, hard court: 20.07.2009 Stephane Bohli - Andrey Golubev 6-3, 6-2
Orbetello, clay: 27.07.2009 Oleksandr Dolgopolov Jr - Pablo Andujar 6-4, 6-2
San Marino*, clay: 03.08.2009 Andreas Seppi - Potito Starace 6-7(1), 6-1, 6-2
Cordenons, clay: 10.08.2009 Peter Luczak - Olivier Rochus 5-7, 6-1, 6-2
Trani, clay: 17.08.2009 Daniel Köllerer - Filippo Volandri 6-4, 6-4
Manerbio, clay: 24.08.2009    
Como, clay: 31.08.2009    
Genova, clay: 07.09.2009    
Todi, clay: 14.09.2009    
Palermo, clay: 21.09.2009    
Napoli - Posillipo, clay: 28.09.2009    



Trani, typical tourist pic

- ATP Challenger Tour www.atpworldtour.com/Tournaments/Challenger-Tour.aspx
- Trani Cup www.atptrani.com
- ESPN article on Koellerer
- Brazilian video on 2005 Koellerer beating Del Potro
- buy Köllerer gear http://shop.mesports.at/grplist.asp?group=7
- official Koellerer site www.koellerer.cc