At this year’s Plava Laguna Croatia Open Umag, Croatia’s tennis legend Goran Ivanišević challenged his colleagues, Slovenia’s Aljaž Bedene and Russia’s Andrey Rublov, as well as one of the best Slovenian basketball players Marko Milič, to a tennis match. To increase the challenge, Ivanišević took them out to sea, in the middle of the stunning Umag Bay.
SUPer Tennis, sponsored this year by the Slovenian insurer Triglav, is played with a racket and a ball, just like in conventional tennis; however, the players stand on surfboards instead of a stable surface.
Even though they are all top-level athletes, keeping their balance on water was quite challenging, especially when the waves started moving them about. The rough sea made the match even more interesting and the boys often fell in the sea in an attempt to get to the ball. Last year’s Umag champion Andrey Rublov was having so much fun that he ended up being late for his training session, as he is trying to prepare for his performance at the tournament, where he will try to defend his title.
Last year, the Russian impressed the fans by winning the tournament as the lucky loser; it was his career-first title. He said he knew it would not be easy this time around, adding that over the next few days he wanted to repeat the feat on the courts in Umag. The Slovenian tennis player, Aljaž Bedene, is scheduled to play today; this is not his first performance in Umag either. Back in 2013, he achieved his best result by advancing to the quarterfinals of the tournament.
All the visitors of the Plava Laguna Croatia Open Umag can try their hand at SUPer Tennis every day, for the duration of the tournament. If you wish to know how the guys did, watch here.
