Reading while playing tennis is sometimes underestimated. It doesn’t have to be a thick textbook like Brad Gilbert’s “Winning Ugly”, a classic for all sorts of mean things on the pitch, which is appreciated by club players with a destructive streak. More is often the result of constructive reading material, often a piece of paper is enough. Unforgotten is the folded sheet of paper that Pete Sampras once pulled out of his tennis bag between rallies at Wimbledon and studied: a letter from his wife Bridgette, as it later turned out. Back then, in 2002, Sampras, as a seven-time Wimbledon winner, still lost the match against George Bastl, Switzerland; but a few months later he conquered his 14th Grand Slam trophy in triumph in New York. The motivation note as a pedagogical aid in the felt ball business began its triumphal march at the latest at that time. And Sampras’ record lasted until the era of the so-called Big Three started in tennis.
So it was an all-round positive sign that Jule Niemeier from Dortmund, 23 years old, immersed himself in a book during a change of sides at the lawn tournament in Berlin this week. Ranked number 120, she was playing against Tunisia’s Ons Jabeur, world number six and last year’s finalist at both Wimbledon and Flushing Meadows. After a shaky start and already having saved two set balls, Niemeier was 4:5 behind at this point. At the end of the 90-second break, she closed the book pages. Then she got up, won two games in a row, the tie break, the set and finally the match. 7:6(4), 6:4. In the first Berlin lawn round, Niemeier had swept the defending champion out of the tournament.
If further proof was needed that reading helps, including when it comes to positional play, smashing and serving, Jule Niemeier delivered it impressively on the pitch. “She looks at the book regularly,” said Christopher Kas, 43, her trainer later. Just this much about the content: It is not something that hobby players could buy in bookstores, but a one-off, handwritten by Niemeier. “She writes down what we worked out in the team beforehand,” says Kas, “she’s meticulous about it.” They then consult the notes in critical phases. Kas looks on from the sidelines with delight that the young pro player is able to consult with herself and make decisions without waiting for shouts from the player box. In addition, the concentrated reading for a few seconds on the bench also helps to calm the nerves.
Twelve first-round defeats have been recorded since January
Because Jule Niemeier, who played undeterred through a fabulous season last year and reached the quarter-finals of Wimbledon as a debutant (6: 4, 2: 6, 5: 7 against her teammate Tatjana Maria), recently experienced sobering weeks, to put it mildly and months. Twelve first-round defeats have been recorded since January; Most recently she left Rome, Florence, Paris and Nottingham in succession after a few short rallies in the competition. In between, she managed, among other things, to beat three-time tournament winner Petra Kvitova in Madrid.
She does not believe that this one match on grass, the Berlin victory against Jabeur, will immediately initiate the 180-degree turnaround. As a professional, she is too realistic for that – because her hope for the end of the series of failures in the clay court season also remained unfulfilled in the spring: “Last year I played well on clay and still didn’t get it right this year,” she said. “It’s good to know that I played well on grass last year. Nevertheless, it’s starting from scratch again.”
She draws confidence from the certainty that she has gathered the right people around her: “I’m proud of the whole team, that we stuck with it and kept working,” she said seriously. In addition to Kas, this also includes physio and fitness trainer Florian Zitzelsberger and coach Michael Geserer, with whom she works in Regensburg. The group of advisors was recently expanded to include an expert with special insider knowledge: Andrea Petkovic, 35, who the German Tennis Association was able to win after her career ended as a “mentor for the new generation”, now and then also sits in the player box at Jule Niemeier’s matches. Niemeier, who had never played against Ons Jabeur before, revealed to the Berlin audience immediately after the match point what their wealth of experience is worth in individual cases. Because her former colleague Petkovic has a lot ahead of her – in three duels on her part. Serve, change of rhythm, speed of the game: The communication of such details was of enormous value, thought Niemeier and brought the advantage to the formula, which was memorable for laypeople: “Petko knew how the shots felt.” Kas also appreciates this exchange with Petkovic.
And ultimately, she didn’t hide that either, good things can even be gained from a long series of defeats: From painful experience, she now knows how to deal with the situations in tight moments of the game: “That’s why I think it’s a very instructive time was in the last few weeks and months.” All of this has found its way into her journal: the logbook for the danger zones on the pitch. It may be used again in the round of 16 in Berlin against the Czech Marketa Vondrousova.