Last fall, Sebastian Ofner had to undergo heel surgery on both feet. Immediately afterwards, fitness training was the order of the day, but Ofner has been back on the tennis court since the beginning of December: “At the beginning, I only trained once a week in Bruck with Steve Rettl and then steadily increased the volume. Now I've been back in full training with Wolfgang Thiem in Traiskirchen for around six weeks and have already played points again. As far as the pain is concerned, the positive days clearly outweigh the negative ones,” reported Ofner.

The schedule for the first comeback phase includes four Challenger tournaments in Spain (Murcia, Girona, Menorca and Madrid) starting on March 17. “I need a lot of matches to get back into a rhythm. That's the be-all and end-all in tennis. But if things go very well at one or two tournaments in Spain, then I might skip a week in order to manage the load well,” says Ofner, who is also considering using his protected ranking for one of the ATP Masters 1000 events in Madrid or Rome. In total, the Styrian can use his Protected Ranking of 74 nine times over the next nine months for starts at tournaments where he would otherwise not be in the field of participants with his current world ranking position.

Steve Rettl will continue to act as touring coach, but there will be a new management line-up, with the e|motion group taking over from Herwig Straka. “I'm looking forward to an interesting collaboration with the e|motion group and Herwig. We are both required to do a good job - I on a sporting level and he in management,” Ofner explained with a wink, adding. “Joking aside, Herwig is a recognized and well-connected expert on the international tennis scene. I'm already curious to see how the cooperation will work out.”

“We are facing a new, exciting phase. Our task as e|motion group is to provide Sebastian with the best possible support so that he can concentrate fully on achieving his sporting goals,” emphasized Herwig Straka.