The Baseline Player of the Week: Laura Siegemund

The Baseline Player of the Week: Laura Siegemund

Every week Baseline will select a “Player of the Week.” That athlete may not always win the highest category tournament that week, but perform the best compared to their recent playing history.

A year ago, Laura Siegemund was a virtual unknown when she entered qualifying of the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix in Stuttgart. A player who spent most of her career toiling at the ITF Pro Circuit level, the German managed to get through to the main draw and then beat three Top 10 players to reach her first WTA Premier final.

The Cinderella-esque script did not have the perfect ending, with reigning Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber ending Siegemund’s run.

“I really don't want to put any pressure on myself,” Siegemund said at the time. “I have learned to play freely and enjoy and I never want that have taken away again. So, my main aim will be to stay balanced, stay with my feet on the ground, do good work and enjoy being out there on the tennis court.”

The 29-year-old will have certainly enjoyed her last week, as she followed nearly the same script but rewrote the ending. The German wildcard beat three Top 10 opponents on her way to winning her first WTA Premier title.

“I still can’t believe it. I really played great, but I don’t remember a lot of the last few points because I was so focused,” Siegemund told*WTA Insider* about on Sunday. “It’s unbelievable for me, and it can’t get much better than this, really. I’m just so proud, and so happy that I could give something back to the people.”

The home favorite gave her fans a lot to cheer about in Sunday’s thrilling final by beating an in-form world No. 19-ranked Kristina Mladenovic, 6-1, 2-6, 7-6 (5).

Mladenovic did not go down without a fight, though. It looked like Siegemund was going to clinch her biggest title when she hit a screaming inside-out return to break and earn the right to serve for the championship.

Yet the French star hung on to even the match, sending the drama into a deciding tiebreak. It looked like Siegemund may lose her first tiebreak of the week (she won her previous two) when Mladenovic jumped ahead, 4-2.

But Siegemund won five of the last six points, sliding in for a Mladenovic drop shot on match point and scooping it crosscourt for a winner.

Perhaps most impressive was how the German got to the final: her highest-ranked contest going into Stuttgart was a loss to No. 6-ranked Dominika Cibulkova. Over the last six days, Siegemund beat world No. 3 Karolina Pliskova, world No. 5 Simona Halep and world No. 9 Svetlana Kuznetsova.

“I think every match was very different, physically and mentally,” Siegemund said. “I can’t really compare them. I tried to take each day as it came, and I think I did a good job of making the best out of every day this week. That added up to winning the whole thing.”

So while it took Siegemund until the age of 28 to reach her first WTA Premier final, she only needed one year to do one better.