Laura Siegemund: Wiesbaden and Karlsruhe instead of Madrid and Rome
Laura Siegemund was in good spirits after her exit from the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart - even if there is still a need for adjustment.
by Florian Goosman from Stuttgart
last edit: Apr 22, 2022, 11:09 pm
Laura Siegemund came to the press conference about an hour after her exit from the WTA tournament in Stuttgart. The Porsche Tennis Grand Prix 2022 was once again a success for her, with the quarter-finals quite shortly after her comeback. Siegemund has only played three tournaments so far, after a break of nine months, with two victories in Stuttgart she can believe she is on the right track here.
A missed chance for a possible semi-final? She was surprised by herself, explained Siegemund, because the frustration did not outweigh this time (and he usually does that often). But Siegemund accepted the positive things that physically she felt even better on Friday than the day before. "There was a lot of good stuff to build on."
The problem against Samsonova: too little length in the shots, which Siegemund wanted to improve during the match and therefore gave racquets to be re-strung, but in the end it wasn't enough. Nevertheless, it is precisely these little things that are currently missing: "Actually, I thought I had slowly grooved into what I need in terms of tension. But then it was totally different today and it's such a mixture: You become maybe a bit tired, my arm maybe a bit slower through the matches, and I have to adjust myself first. I should have just strung a little softer."
These are things that require a few tournaments, a few matches, "then you know and can anticipate that. Today I was caught on the wrong foot, but I can't blame myself for that." She didn't lose the match because of that either, "but if I had had the right toughness right away, I might have managed one or two meters longer earlier and could have made a small difference."
In order to gain match practice, Siegemund will now also take the smaller tour with him - the ITF tournament in Wiesbaden, then the WTA 125er in Karlsruhe. For the big events in Madrid and Rome, she would otherwise have to take her "protected ranking", explained Siegemund, and anyway it is currently important for her to get a few games, to have a tournament progress with a few games won, "to get me back into groove to be able to, also in terms of my physical condition."
She wants to take one step after the other, says Siegemund, the first goal is to get back into the top 100. And then? "I think when I'm physically fit and healthy, I've shown that I belong in the top 50 again."