Played great, but defeated in the end: Laura Siegemund missed her first round of 16 at the Australian Open despite a convincing performance. The 34-year-old from Metzingen lost to the strong Frenchwoman Caroline Garcia 6:1, 3:6, 3:6 in the third round duel on Saturday.
This means that the round of the last 16 in Melbourne will take place for the first time since 2010 without German participation in both individual competitions.
“It was an impressive performance by Laura, hats off. She played one of her best matches on hard court that I’ve ever seen from her,” said national coach Barbara Rittner Eurosport-Microphone: “She should urgently consider whether she shouldn’t play a bit more individually, because that was really fun.”
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Siegemund had already surprised the Romanian Irina-Camelia Begu in the second round, now she annoyed her highly valued opponent for a long time. Her greatest success at Grand Slam level remains the 2020 quarter-finals in Paris. In Melbourne, she had also reached the third round on her debut seven years ago.
From a German point of view, there is now a yawning emptiness Down Under. Ten professionals from Germany started in the main draw. Only Olympic champion Alexander Zverev had made it into the second round alongside Siegemund, but then failed because of the American Michael Mmoh.
The day before her highlight game, Siegemund also started in doubles without success – she wants to concentrate on the discipline in the future due to injury reasons.
Rittner was curious to see how much the experienced player still had in her tank on her fourth day in a row. “It’s difficult to stay focused non-stop,” she said.
Siegemund starts furiously
But Siegemund was in it straight away. She served with an enormously high rate and benefited from many return errors from her opponent. Then she switched to attack mode on Garcia’s serve and earned the break to make it 3-1. The fighter kept pushing and brought home the first set after just 34 minutes.
What is going on here? Siegemund plays the favored Garcia
Garcia was looking to break the underdog’s momentum early in the second set. Siegemund defended himself vehemently, but lost her serve for the first time to make it 2:4 against her now more concentrated opponent, who then refused to let the second round go. In the deciding set, the French put forward a break, but Siegemund hit back and it became more and more of a thriller.
Siegemund was warned twice for exceeding the time before her service and lost a first serve when the score was 40:40 in the decisive game. “No one would do that at Rafa,” said the German in reference to top star Nadal. She resisted afterwards, but ultimately had to congratulate Garcia.
“She has to be careful!” Siegemund shoots against the referee
(SID)
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