Daniel Michalski has won the 27th International Greater Poland Tennis Championships. In Sunday’s final the top-seeded Pole beat Michael Savano 6–2, 6–1 and claimed his second Poznań title, after the one from 2024. Only Dusan Lojda, the champion in 2009 and 2012, had managed that before him.
From the very first game the final was played on Michalski’s terms. The American, who had come through qualifying into the main draw and knocked out Filip Pieczonka along the way, found no answer. The Pole also had none of the trouble that had bothered him a day earlier — in the closing stages of Saturday’s semi-final against Nikita Mashtakov he was fighting cramp.
Daniel Michalski [1] ✓66
Michael Savano [Q]21The circle we wrote about before the final has closed as well. Since Astra Coffee & More became title sponsor of the championships two years ago, all three singles finals have gone to Poles: Michalski in 2024, Fryderyk Lechno-Wasiutyński in 2025 and Michalski again now.
After the match the winner spoke above all about the crowd. He thanked the spectators for turning out in such numbers and for a welcome he had not experienced, as he admitted, either at his previous tournament in Kraków or when he first won in Poznań. He also recalled last year, when injury kept him away and his place, as he put it, was taken in fine style by Frycek — the name everyone in the tennis world uses for Fryderyk Lechno-Wasiutyński.
Asked about the future, Michalski gave an answer that was honest and double-edged at once: he would very much like to come back, but he would like even more for his ranking a year from now to let him play higher-level tournaments, on another continent. In the week the tournament is being played in Poznań, US Open qualifying is under way on the other side of the Atlantic.
During the trophy ceremony tournament director Jacek Muzolf thanked the large crowd as well as the championships’ sponsors and partners: title sponsor Astra Coffee & More, main sponsors Enea, Makropol and the Piszcz i Wspólnicy law firm, and also the City of Poznań, whose mayor Jacek Jaśkowiak was a guest of the tournament, the Self-Government of the Greater Poland Region, the Poznań County and the Polish Tennis Association. The championships are part of the Lotto PZT Polish Tour, whose title sponsor is Lotto.
Thanks also went to the tournament supervisor, the line judges and the ball kids. Finally the director pointed to those whose work the spectators usually never see — the ground staff. It is thanks to them that the clay stayed in perfect condition all week, including on the days when the downpours tried to ruin the schedule.
Sunday brought Poznań one more reason to celebrate. The day of the final was also Wojciech Fibak’s birthday, and tournament director Jacek Muzolf, together with his wife Krystyna, made sure the date did not pass unmarked — Fibak received a bouquet from them and a rousing rendition of “Sto lat”, the Polish birthday song, from the crowd. For him the AZS courts have never been just another venue: this is where he came up through the club and took his first steps in tennis, and this is where he returned every day of the week to cheer on players now setting out on the same path.
That path has a history in Poznań, and numbers to back it up. A tournament with a $30,000 prize pool is a stop in a player’s career, not a destination — which is why the championships’ archive reads today like a list of names that meant something entirely different in tennis a few years later. The Poznań draws have featured Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski, later winners of the Masters 1000 title in Madrid and US Open finalists; Łukasz Kubot, who played here in 2001 at the very start of his career and sixteen years later won the Wimbledon doubles title and became the first Pole to top the world rankings; Jerzy Janowicz, in Poznań in 2008 and in the Wimbledon semi-final five years later; Jan Zieliński, a three-time entrant at these championships and a two-time Grand Slam champion in mixed doubles; and Hubert Hurkacz, who played here in 2014, 2015 and 2017, and a decade later was ranked sixth in the world — the highest position ever held by a Polish player in the ATP rankings.
The same pattern works one level below. Before a player reaches the draw of a professional tournament, he usually comes through junior competition — and the same courts host the junior Grand Prix Wojciecha Fibaka, a J100 event. This year’s Astra Coffee & More Open finalist is the best example of that. A year ago Michael Savano reached the final of the Grand Prix, beating top seed Valentin Gonzalez-Galino and fifth seed Radek Chodora along the way. This year he came back to the same clay, now in a professional event, came through qualifying and reached the final again. Two appearances in Poznań, two finals — the American clearly feels at home here. And he has every reason to come back for a third time.
Thank you for everything, and see you next year.
Jacek Muzolf, tournament director
