After her long injury break, tennis player Laura Siegemund will not be attending the upcoming major clay court tournaments in Madrid and Rome.
Instead, she will play smaller tournaments in Wiesbaden and Karlsruhe, announced the 34-year-old from Metzingen after her quarter-finals at her home tournament in Stuttgart. After her knee operation and a longer injury break, the Swabian is looking for match practice. In smaller tournaments, the chances of progression and more games are greater.
The reason for not going to Madrid and Rome is also that she would have to use her protected ranking list position to participate there. Due to her forced break, she fell back to 231st place in the world rankings. According to the WTA regulations, she can register for eight tournaments with her so-called Protected Ranking (57). The ranking position is decisive for whether you can participate in a tournament. At the larger events, however, she would probably have to compete in the qualification.
In Stuttgart, the Swabian was the only German player to reach the quarterfinals, but lost 5:7, 3:6 to the Russian Lyudmila Samsonowa. “I think that this was the first step on a long way to get back into the top 100,” she said: “That’s my first big goal, so I’m just safe in Grand Slams and so on can be in the main draw”. She has shown that she “belongs back in the top 50” when she is healthy.
© dpa-infocom, dpa:220422-99-09928/3 (dpa)
