German women’s tennis team celebrates successful qualification for the Billie Jean King Cup final tournament.

Team manager Rainer Schüttler was just about to start praising his team when they cut him off. In a good mood, Jule Niemeier and Co. stormed the media room of the Stuttgart Arena and gave Shaker and teammate Anna-Lena Friedsam a good shower of water while shouting “So-Sieger-Aus” (So see the winners).

“They’ll get that back later,” joked Schüttler, now with wet hair, but still satisfied. The mood could hardly have been better among the German tennis players after the successful qualification for the final tournament in the Billie Jean King Cup. “It’s just a great team,” said Schüttler.

Friedsam: “We don’t need to hide from anyone”

Stuttgart’s success came at the right time. Before the final of the twelve best national teams in November, which was missed last year, the German Tennis Association (DTB) is even allowed to dream again: “If you didn’t hope to win the cup now, you would be wrong as a professional athlete. Anything is possible,” said Schüttler and Friedsam added: “We don’t need to hide from anyone because we have a very strong team across the board.”

In fact: The unity of the team turned out to be a great strength of the German team, for which Friedsam, Maria and the recently weak Niemeier were also successful. The latter symbolizes the upswing in the German team. After her strong year in 2022, when she failed in Wimbledon in the quarterfinals to Maria, Niemeier started the new season with numerous failures before she managed a liberation in Stuttgart.

“That was a very important match for me. I felt the pressure,” said the 23-year-old after her decisive three-set victory over the world number 14. and Brazilian top player Beatriz Haddad Maia, who set the course for victory: “I was anything but confident, but I was encouraged by the whole team.”

Niemeier’s goal, and that of her teammates, is clear: Take the tailwind with you for the upcoming tasks on the tour. “If I play like this, then it can continue to be so successful in the next matches,” said the Dortmund player. How sustainable Stuttgart’s upswing really is will soon become apparent. At the beginning of the week she, like Maria, will start at the same place at the WTA tournament.

(SID)