Jule Niemeier had high hopes, of course. After two impressive performances at the US Open, she had gained new confidence. “Everyone knows that she is a dangerous player, otherwise she wouldn’t be ranked seventh in the world,” said the 25-year-old from Dortmund before her third-round match at the last Grand Slam tournament of the season in New York. “But to be honest, I don’t care at all that she won the Olympics.”
Self-confidence is undoubtedly good, and it never hurts to believe in yourself. But when the match ended on Friday afternoon, the story read very differently. The Chinese, who won the gold medal in Paris at the beginning of August, won 6:2, 6:1 in just 81 minutes. With Niemeier’s elimination, it is also clear that there are no German players left in the women’s singles. From a German perspective, only Alexander Zverev is still in the men’s competition, and he had to play against the Argentinian Tomás Martín Etcheverry on Friday evening (local time).
:Rejection of the DTB
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The 101st in the world rankings was initially able to keep the match open, but from 2:2 onwards Qinwen Zheng pulled ahead, thanks in part to her strong serve and her dominant forehand. Niemeier also has the latter, but she scattered the balls out of bounds or smashed them into the net too often.
Nevertheless, Niemeier drew a positive conclusion. Even before the match against Qinwen Zheng, she had summed up her low points of the past year: “We have worked hard, it is nice that you can see that on the court now. My game is becoming clearer and clearer, I am aware of what I want to do on the court, my head is growing with it. The whole package is slowly coming together.” After the defeat, she admitted: “Overall, it was not consistent enough.” But she said: “It was a very positive week, one that I can be very proud of.” 215,000 dollars in prize money is certainly nothing to sneeze at.
Niemeier is coached by Michael Geserer, who previously worked very successfully with Julia Görges. Two years ago, Niemeier reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon and the round of 16 in New York, but was unable to repeat her performances in 2023. Niemeier could now overtake Laura Siegemund as the best-ranked German player in the world rankings. “It’s of course nice to be number one in Germany,” she said. “But my goal is not to be number one in Germany with a ranking of 80 or 90, but with a very good ranking.”