“Yes, Yes – come on,” shouted Andreas Mies, and the call was so loud that he could still be heard three seats away. For a doubles game in the first round in front of 40 spectators on court 7, there was plenty of pace and temperament in the game. But it wasn’t just any game, it was the first joint appearance by Cologne-based Mies and his Coburg partner Kevin Krawietz at a Grand Slam tournament since September 2020.
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At that time, the two defended their title at the Stade Roland Garros in Paris, but by the beginning of 2021 at the latest it was clear that they would not be able to avoid a separation. Mies still flew to Australia to play in Melbourne, but the pain in his right knee was just too great. Heading home, Krawietz was playing at the Australian Open with Yannick Hanfmann, and they had no idea how long this split would last.
In February, fourth-degree cartilage damage in the Cologne native’s knee was repaired, and the meniscus was smoothed out; not a very uncomplicated story, but Mies says it just wasn’t possible anymore. Before, he had always had to play with painkillers, and even those didn’t help in the end. In order not to endanger the plans and the continuation of the successful partnership with Krawietz, the intervention was simply necessary. It was clear to both of them that they were far from done with each other.
You don’t give up a collaboration that led to two Grand Slam titles if there’s a different way. For eight months, Andreas Mies did everything that was necessary for the rehabilitation, Krawietz played with different partners, primarily with the Romanian Horia Tecau, with whom he also qualified for the ATP finals. When Mies returned in August, it was clear that he would have to look for partners on a case-by-case basis until the end of the year, and that wasn’t easy. “You just always need a certain amount of time to adjust to each other,” he says. “The processes are so important, it is so crucial that you are well-rehearsed. It worked here and there, but overall it was difficult.”
“It’s like being in a relationship”
But those are also the moments that show you very clearly how valuable the old partnership was. In a way, this time of separation after three years together was not so bad. “It’s like in a relationship,” says Mies, “where you sometimes don’t really know what you have in the other person and take everything for granted. That wasn’t the case with us, but I realized once again what a great partnership we have that we’ve built up over the three years.”
Once he was on the subject, he could hardly be stopped again, but Kevin Krawietz sat next to him and wasn’t surprised. He knows that the Rhenish partner usually gushes like a waterfall. He himself is different, more reserved, but the strength of the two also grows from the fact that they are so different. When it looked as if Andreas Mies wanted to continue talking until the day after tomorrow, he stopped short after a side glance at Krawietz and then said with a grin: “He’s missed me too.” To which the partner countered briefly and dryly: “Last year at the press conference the answers were a bit shorter.”
In any case, at the ATP tournament in Sydney at the beginning of January, the happy reunion of the doubles took place, which immediately won a few games, and now things should continue at the highest level as before the breakup. Eleven months after the operation, Mies still feels occasional slight pain in his knee, but given the prognosis that it will take a year to a year and a half before everything is completely fine again, he is not concerned. “It will be even better then, and then I’ll be happy to step on the gas again with Kevin.”
Appearing on Court 7 under a cloudless Australian summer sky against a strong Mexican-Argentina doubles team, Santiago Gonzalez and Andres Molteni, there was a certain nervousness in the reunited German pair and that nervousness created errors early on. But the longer the game lasted, the more confident they became, and so it turned into a two-set win 7:6 (9:7), 6:3. In the end they hugged and looked pretty happy. All is well under the sun, the dream couple has met again.
