Anna-Lena Grönefeld has found her late career fortune as a double specialist. A career with breaks and disappointed hopes, which took a conciliatory turn.
Anna-Lena Grönefeld will actually experience something completely new on her late days as a tennis globetrotter. At this week’s WTA World Championship in Singapore, none of the players have made the big titles and big German headlines in recent years. Not Sabine Lisicki, not Andrea Petkovic, not Julia Görges. And not Angelique Kerber, last year she was the number one of the individual fighters on the Centre Court and Singapore finalist.
But when the couples’ competition in the Southeast Asian city-state begins on Thursday, the fight for the World Cup crown in doubles, Germany will still have a tennis ambassador at this championship – the 32-year-old Grönefeld, who was once the best national champion herself and the bright hope for the future of German women’s tennis,”It’s a dream that I’ve made it to the World Cup for the first time. I will enjoy every single minute,”says Grönefeld, who will be competing with her Czech friend Kveta Peschke.
Contrary to the individual competition, which is played in a group format, Grönefeld and Peschke cannot allow themselves to slip – a defeat in the title fight means defeat. The draw didn’t mean well with the two of them: The draw was a good start against the top seeded duo Martina Hingis/Chan-Yung Jan.
In another tennis life, in another time Grönefeld had once been traded as the successor of Steffi Graf and Anke Huber – as a potential world class athlete with access to the most beautiful victories, at Grand Slams or the Women’s Masters. It wasn’t daring, as the Nordhorn rider once ranked first in the Junior Women’s World Ranking in both singles and doubles. When she won the 2003 Junior title at the French Open, sponsors and management companies were fighting for the German teenager. They no longer think of yesterday, of missed opportunities,”says Grönefeld today. It’s probably right and better that way, too much went wrong in her career.
Above all, she trusted the wrong consultants and trainers too often and too long. The Spaniard Rafael Font de Mara forced them into a system of complete dependency, marked by training drill and command and obedience. When Grönefeld failed to live up to the expectations of the notorious grinder, Font de Mara separated from her in 2007 and shouted bitterly angry words to her: she was like a donkey who could not function independently. It was a moment, says Grönefeld,”when the world lay there like a heap of rubble.”
It took a long time for Grönefeld to recover from the horror regime of the former coach. In 2011, the Nordhorn player took a radical step, she ended her single career with a quick decision and concentrated from then on her double game “I have never regretted the decision,”says Grönefeld,”I have simply not been able to make the decision,” because the expectations in the singles have never been fulfilled.
As I said: Others have been in the limelight in Germany in recent years, with titles and trophies and outstanding world rankings. When the German miracle of Miss Wonder was mentioned, Grönefeld was not mentioned any more, even though it can still be attributed to this generation of players. Grönefeld has never complained about her status in the second row, she knows for herself,”that the doubles go through quite a bit under the radar” On the other hand, she was a reliable figure in the German Fed Cup team for years, she won important points with changing partners and was also the “mood cannon in the team” (DTB women’s boss Barbara Rittner).
For her uncomplicated nature and her flexibility she is also appreciated by the nomadic professionals. Grönefeld can easily adapt to new players and challenging situations. With nine different colleagues she won a total of fifteen titles, including Martina Navratilova. In 2009 she won the French Open with Jean-Julien Rojer (Netherlands) and in 2014 in Wimbledon with Mark Knowles (Bahamas).
We’re not the top favourites,”he added. But nothing is impossible,”says Grönefeld. After all, she has already collected four double titles with Peschke and played them regularly in the current season:”It will be a great experience in any case,”says Grönefeld. Something completely new, after all the exhausting and exciting rollercoaster years in the travelling circus.