The tennis world in Bolzano is in mourning over the death of Tobias Tappeiner, the 24-year-old who lost his life at dawn, driving the wrong way on the Brenner motorway, colliding with the minivan of a South Tyrolean family from Varna who were on their way to the seaside on holiday.
Traffic police are working to reconstruct the exact dynamics of the accident. It remains inexplicable why the young man, who knew the Bolzano Sud junction very well, had taken the southbound carriageway in the opposite direction .
Tappeiner lived in San Paolo di Appiano and was an instructor at the tennis school of the club in via Martin Knoller in Bolzano, for which he played in the B1 series championship. As a boy, Tappeiner had faced Jannik Sinner, a year younger than him, on several occasions . In 2014, the Alto Adige newspaper recalls, he had beaten the future world number one in an U12 tournament in Bressanone 7-6, 6-3 . Together they had faced several away matches representing the Alto Adige team.
A photo on social media shows the two smiling during a match in 2022. "Smiling, kind, with a quick irony. I remember Tobi like this. On the field, however, he transformed: he was a lion. He didn't give up a ball. To beat him you had to have something more, otherwise in the end he managed to prevail with his determination", Stefan Laimer, the sports director of Tc Bolzano, told the newspaper.
An autopsy will not be performed on the young man's body. This was established by the Bolzano Prosecutor's Office. With the death of the offender, the investigation is terminated and for this reason there will not be a toxicological test either.
(Online Union)