Wimbledon: “A stone fell from the heart”: Niemeier continues the series

Jule Niemeier threw away her racket, buried her face in her hands and kept touching her heart. In a nerve-racking thriller, the 22-year-old from Dortmund continued her fabulous series of successes at the grass classic in Wimbledon and reached the round of 16 for the first time.

The German tennis hope defeated the Ukrainian Lessia Zurenko 6: 4, 3: 6, 6: 3 on Friday and confirmed her previous success against the third in the world rankings Anett Kontaveit from Estonia.

“It just took a load off my heart, that had nothing to do with the match two days ago today,” said Niemeier about her jubilant gesture. “I’m just very happy that I won the match in the end, even if I didn’t play my best tennis.”

“It was an emotional roller coaster ride”

In a break festival, both players stole the serve a total of 21 times. After 2:04 hours, Niemeier converted the first match point through a backhand mistake by her opponent. “It was an emotional roller coaster ride. I’m immensely proud that she managed to be there again and again in the important phases, to play actively enough,” said coach Christopher Kas. “We’re on a certain cloud, and we’ll just keep riding it and then we’ll see how far it takes us.”

For the biggest success of her career, she collects the equivalent of 219,000 euros. In her Wimbledon debut, Niemeier now meets Brit Heather Watson, who defeated Tamara Korpatsch in the first round. “She’s a great player, an experienced player,” Niemeier said of her 30-year-old next opponent. “Hopefully we’ll play on a bigger court because I felt pretty confident on Court 1.”

Instead of playing on Court 1 in the second largest stadium, as against Kontaveit, Niemeier played on the 18th outdoor court, and the world number 97 had windy conditions. their problems at the beginning. In her two sovereign two-set victories in the tournament, Niemeier had not yet received a break – and gave up the first of ten of her service games against Zurenko right at the beginning, and that to zero.

With brains, Niemeier brought the match home

“The match after such a match is not easy,” said coach Kas in view of the much-noticed success of Kontaveit, who was number two. The beginning was nervous, in the first three games alone Niemeier made ten unforced errors, and it quickly became 0:3. She slowly came into play and equalized to make it 3:3. With her forehand and stop balls, Niemeier initially dominated the game. A mistake by Zurenko sealed the win of the first set after 49 minutes.

The sense of achievement did not ensure consistency, however. Again Niemeier had to accept two service losses in a row, again it was 0:3. Although she was able to equalize again as in the first set, the security did not return. Zurenko mainly attacked the second serve and got the through after a failed shot by Niemeier at the net.

At the start of the third set there were five breaks in a row, and Niemeier went to the bench with a disbelieving smile at 3:2. With a volley, the Dortmund woman got the first serve of the round and held her index finger to her temple. With brains, Niemeier brought the match home. “I think a lot of people expected me to win that relatively easily today,” she said. «We have adjusted to it. If you beat a top ten player two days ago, you want to win the next match to prove it to yourself. That also played a role.”