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 winning streak 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 and confirmed her previous success against the third in the world rankings Anett Kontaveit from Estonia.
Biggest career success to date
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 Briton Heather Watson, who defeated Tamara Korpatsch in the first round.
“I love playing on grass. It suits my game,” Niemeier said before the game. “I love playing slice, stops, going to the net. When I serve well, it’s hard to break me.” In her two sovereign two-set victories in the tournament, Niemeier had not yet received a break – and gave up her serve against Zurenko right at the beginning of a total of ten times, and that to zero.