DANIEL ISLAND, SC — A year ago, Laura Siegemund had just won a surprising title at her hometown tournament in Stuttgart, Germany, and was considered a contender at the French Open. Then, suddenly, his hopes and his right leg collapsed.
At a tournament in Nuremberg, Germany, in May, the week before Roland Garros, Siegemund fell awkwardly while sliding to the right, tearing her right anterior cruciate ligament. She was carried off the field on a stretcher, her season having ended.
Barbara Rittner, then Germany’s Fed Cup captain, was with Siegemund as she lay on the court, and she recounted Siegemund’s words in an interview on German television that day.
“This can’t be true – why now?” Rittner quoted Siegemund as saying.
The shock quickly dissipated, replaced by clarity, Siegemund said in a recent interview. She realized she had gained something tennis players almost never get: free time.
This harsh setback pushed Siegemund forward in unexpected ways, allowing him to continue his work in psychology and fueling an already competitive mindset.
“I had a lot of things on my list that I really wanted to do, and suddenly I had a lot of free time to do them,” said Siegemund, who ranked 27th in the world. “All these things came to mind at the same time, so it kind of took away the negative about it.”
Siegemund, 30, enjoyed spending more time with his loved ones and exploring psychology, a bachelor’s degree subject at the University of Hagen. She hopes to one day pursue graduate studies in this field, but in her free time she has read books on the subject and highlighted it at corporate conferences.
“I was speaking in front of companies and also in front of the tennis federation, different types of audiences on psychological topics,” Siegemund said. “Of course, it was from the point of view of a professional athlete, but I tried to go a little further, transferring what we experience on the field. I think you can transfer it to any area of life and business. I rather liked that, giving my point of view on these things.
Siegemund’s undergraduate thesis focused on a topic intrinsic to her life as a tennis player: choking under pressure. She says her expertise in the field doesn’t necessarily protect her from collapse.
“It helps me to gain additional knowledge, but being able to apply it in these situations is a whole different thing,” she said. “Theory and practice are two completely different things. But it’s good to have the theory to try to apply it.
On the court, Siegemund is known for being a fierce and ruthless competitor who often upsets her opponents.
“I think part of her game is figuring out how to irritate the other person a little bit,” said Naomi Osaka, a recent opponent.
Siegemund said she applied some of that same relentlessness to her rehabilitation process.
“I sometimes drive people around me crazy because I’m very impatient, and if things don’t progress, I can be difficult to deal with,” she said. “But I get up at 7 a.m., and I’m the first one in and the last one out. That’s also a good thing, but maybe sometimes it would be nice to be more relaxed and not be so competitive.
Working diligently, Siegemund was ready for a return last month, but decided to wait until the tour moved away from hard courts.
“The doctors recommended I start on clay,” she said. “And it’s also my favorite surface, so those two things came together.”
After playing a small tournament in Italy, Siegemund returned to the WTA Tour and won her first match on April 2 at the Volvo Car Open in this island community near Charleston. She lost in the second round to Osaka, the recent Indian Wells champion, after holding four set points in the second set.
Siegemund feels confident in her knee, she said, but she still wears a large brace on her right leg for physical and mental reassurance.
“I want to take it off,” she said, laughing. “It doesn’t look very pretty, it’s really ugly.” Maybe a shout out to everyone who makes braces, maybe they could make something nice instead of this.
Siegemund, who had five wins against top-10 players on clay last year, said she didn’t dwell on what might have happened during her recovery, even though Roland Garros brought many upheavals, notably championship victory for unseeded Jelena Ostapenko.
“I don’t participate in this hypothetical trip that much,” Siegemund said. “What happened to me, I had to face it. I saw it as a task that I had to manage, and I think that helped me get through it all in a positive way and really come back stronger, a little bit.
Siegemund’s next tournament is next week in Stuttgart, where she won her second WTA title last year. In addition to the trophy and cash prizes, Siegemund won a car from Porsche, title sponsor of the event. The company did a custom paint job in “frozen bay,” a color Siegemund described as purplish taupe, and by the time the car was finished, its owner couldn’t bend the knee enough to climb aboard.
Siegemund said she doesn’t put pressure on herself to succeed quickly, but she hasn’t dampened her expectations after returning to the tour as what she considers a more well-rounded player and person, while remaining hungry for success on the field.
“I don’t want to be where I was before, I want to be better than that,” she said. “But maybe in a different way.”
