Gradually get better. Not too fast, but quiet steps forward. That is how tennis star Suzan Lamens prefers to work, and so far she succeeds nicely. The 25-year-old South Holland won her first WTA250 tournament in 2024, in Osaka, defeated a player from the top 10 for the first time and achieved her biggest goal until then: the top 100. She is now a fixed value at major tournaments. In January she played on the Australian Open, and she was also allowed to participate in the large WTA tournaments in Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid and Rome.
As number 67 in the world, Lamens was placed directly this year directly for the main tournament of Roland Garros. On Tuesday she will meet the American Ashlyn Kroegerer in Paris in the first round, currently 35th on the WTA ranking. For the women, in addition to lamens, Arantxa Russian also participates in singles, among the men, these are Tallon Griekspoor, Botic van de Zandschulp and Jesper de Jong.
Lamens has been playing tennis since she was six at the De Brug tennis school in Berkel en Rodenrijs, where Kiki Bertens, the former number four in the world, once started. When she was nine, head coach Martin van der Brugghen took care of her. “I immediately saw that she was athletic, strong, could run well. She worked hard. But I mainly saw that she was intelligent and had game insight,” says Van der Brugghen. That makes her special, he thinks. “You can learn strength and technology, but you must have intelligence of yourself if you really want to become good.”
Fanatic in everything
Lamens was fanatic from an early age, in everything she did. In addition to tennis, she turned at a high level. When she went to high school, she had to choose from her parents. “Suzan asked me: what do you want me to choose?” Says father René Lamens. “Of course I said it was her own choice, but secretly I was happy that she chose tennis. That’s nice outside, I don’t have to sit in a sports hall for whole days.”
The game element pulled Lamens over the line. “If there is a game element in something, I immediately like it,” she explains. Whether she also likes to play games? “Yes, earthworms, or Uno. But I can’t really handle my loss.” Although … “With tennis you lose almost every week, unless you win a tournament. So then you will learn it.”
At the age of sixteen, Lamens won her first national title. At that time she also started playing tournaments abroad. To be able to focus on the sport faster, she decided to go from 3 VWO to 4 HAVO, so that she would be ready a year earlier. “I tried to convince my parents that if I still wanted to go to the university, I could always flow through an HBO propaedeutician,” she says. Her parents agreed.
Tennis is an expensive sport on a professional level. A player must pay for a coach himself, and hotel rooms during tournaments. Transport, for the entire team, is also for the account of players. Especially for starting players that is tough, because the prize money is still very low. You do not start directly on the WTA circuit, the highest level for women’s tennis, but a level underneath, on the ITF tournaments.
For comparison: reaching the first round of the WTA1000 tournament in Rome yields a player 13,150 euros. That is already more than she would get if she won one of the larger ITF tournaments: almost 11,000 euros. If she loses that tournament in the first round, she will go home with less than 400 euros.
Fortunately, the Lamens family had many people around them who wanted to contribute financially to tennis Dream. And Lamens tried to reduce the costs where possible. For example, she contacted players who knew they would play at the same tournament via social media, asking if they might want to share a room.
In the meantime, hotel rooms or sponsorship of friends and family is no longer necessary. Lamens on the WTA circuit manages to earn a nice sandwich with tennis.
Hard worker
The perseverance and willpower of lamens are noticed and admired by its environment. “She never gives up, has been a very hard worker from an early age,” says Kiki Bertens, who had already noticed Lamens at the tennis school where they both started. “She was always one of the better children, but she did not stand head and shoulders above the rest. She was not someone who was already there at the age of eighteen. She has always continued to develop.”
Yet there are also points in her game that Lamens has to work on. Her weakness is that she naturally plays defensively: she is fast and can therefore recover many balls, especially on the slow clay of Paris. “But you shouldn’t come up with defensive play against stronger players,” says Lamens themselves. “Unless you want to lose very thick, of course.”
So trainer Van der Brugghen works with lamens on an more attacking game. “If she plays more forward and takes the ball earlier after the rump, she takes time away from the opponent,” he explains.
This requires self -confidence. “If it gets exciting, keeping playing offensively is more difficult. I will fall back on my easier default mode“, Says Lamens.” But it is getting easier and easier. I get stronger opponents now, that’s good for me. I have played a lot of good jars and won good jars. The feeling that I hears at the big tournaments is starting to come more and more. ”
She talks about a match that she played this month at the Gravelel Tournament in Rome against the Belgian Elise Mertens, at that time number 24 in the world. They lost them in three sets. “Last year I had been happy that I had made a three -stepter to make it. Now I want more.”
The willpower of Lamens can sometimes also be a burden, trainer Martin van der Brugghen notes. “If you are so driven, that also makes you more vulnerable. The pressure then becomes higher. As a result, Suzan has long thought that she is mentally not strong at all. But if you stand where she is, that is not possible at all.”
Lamens has hired a mental supervisor this spring. Someone who helps her to keep the focus and peace on the track. The coaching already has an effect, Lamens himself notes. “He teaches me breathing exercises for when I sit in between games on my bench. And if I notice that I am still too much in my head, I try to focus my attention on pure and only the next ball that I have to play. That helps.”
Too aggressive
To grow even further, Lamens must occasionally fall in the short term, thinks trainer Van der Brugghen. And that is not easy. “She recently lost a match because she played too aggressively and made too many mistakes. If you are learning something, you don’t know exactly when you have to use it exactly. But if you do something new, it is sometimes good to overdo it.” If she had played more conservatively, she could probably have won that game. “It is then tempting to say: I should no longer do this. But if you are faced with stronger opponents, it will ultimately have to be even more dominant. So it is better to get used to it.”
Now that Lamens earns more prize money, she can take family or guidance to tournaments more often. “That’s nice,” she says. “I am traveling a lot, and in this way tournaments feel a bit more like home.” During Roland Garros, her father, his girlfriend and her twin brother Jasper will be present. Although they stay remotely during the tournament. “I leave her a bit in her own bubble,” says her father. “During such a tournament, she is mainly training and she is a lot in the player lounge. But if she wants to eat a bite with me, then I will be there.”