Laura Siegemund won two singles titles and 18 doubles titles in her twenty-year long career on the WTA Tour.
All those titles were special in their own right — especially the Grand Slams and WTA Finals. But winning Stuttgart in 2017, his second and last title (so far) was very important.
It’s actually his home competition – the 38-year-old is from Metzingen, about half an hour from Stuttgart – and he remembers how last year, he was able to achieve the result. Entering the tournament as World Number 71, she won seven straight matches and 14 straight sets before running into Angelique Kerber, who beat her in the title match.
The following year, now arriving at her home tournament with expectations, she wasn’t thinking ahead to the semis or finals. He just wanted to get through the first round and avoid disappointment.
“It’s been a long time, but I still remember it clearly,” said Siegemund ahead of this year’s Porsche Tennis Grand Prix, his 13th appearance at the tournament. “I was like, OK, I want to win the first round. I don’t want to get out of the first round. But I didn’t really expect to have another big tournament here. I thought it was a one-time thing.”
He cruised through that first match, a 6-2, 7-6 (4) win over Shuai Zhang. After her second win, an upset over eighth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, the pressure slowly began to ease. Feeling more confident and focused in each match, and never tiring no matter how long or how intense the matches were – “I was tough then,” she says – Siegemund pulled through two more matches, downing Karolina Pliskova and Simona Halep, before getting past Kristina Mladenovic 6-1, 2-6, 6, 7-7.
Siegemund isn’t much of a car person, but he really appreciates taking home the Porsche that comes with winning this championship. He still has it nearly a decade later, and it holds great sentimental value.
The former US Open champion doesn’t feel the pressure he once did on court, when he felt he had more to prove. But no matter how old and experienced you are, and no matter how many titles you’ve won, the first rounds are always nerve-wracking, he says.
“It doesn’t matter how you get there, what you’ve done before – the first round is always difficult for everybody,” he said on Monday. “Then once you get into the competition, I find it easy.”
It was certainly an uphill battle for Siegemund in her first round match on Monday, dropping the first set to lucky loser Viktoriya Tomova. He looked better in the second set, but appeared to be on the brink of a 4-0 lead in the tiebreaker.
But in typical Siegemund style, he remained mentally tough, played hard until the last point and found a way, eventually winning 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-1.
Although World 51 wishes he still had the energy he had in his 20s, he believes he is a better player now in many ways.
“I was definitely a potter,” he said before the win, reflecting on the early days of his career. “I didn’t play very fast. I didn’t play aggressively. I was just a runner, and I kept balls in the field.’ and that has changed a lot. I have become a very aggressive player. Getting old, you don’t have the same. [physical ability] like you’re in your early or mid 20s, or even your 20s.
“And so I had to learn to be more aggressive. To take advantage quickly in that direction. And I started to serve better, to return better. In general, I no longer have a problem with speed, and the speed of absorption. And that was always my weakness. Now I wish I had the legs from 10 years ago. But I am happy how my game has changed…”
He will have to take a big step forward in his next match, against six-time Grand Slam champion Iga Swiatek on Wednesday. Swiatek, now coached by Francisco Roig, will be playing in her first match since being upset by Magda Linette in Miami’s opener last month.
Swiatek won both of their career meetings, though they haven’t played since 2023 – and haven’t played on clay since 2021.
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