French Open: Maximilian Marterer: Success through equanimity, patience, stability

Maximilian Marterer is the rising star of the season so far from a German perspective. At the French Open, the Franconian won 5:7, 7:6, 7:5, 6:4 in the second round against the highly regarded Canadian teenager Denis Shapovalov. Sand court king Rafael Nadal could wait in the round of 16 early next week.

Last year Maximilian Marterer had had enough of the somewhat larger world of tennis. When he lost a first-round match on the ATP Tour and Grand Slams at the US Open for the 14th time in a row, he decided to withdraw temporarily.

From then on, Marterer tried his luck again on manageable stages, at the Challenger competitions. He just wanted to feel the feeling of winning more often again and not be confronted with the reports of how many failures. And indeed, the experiment of controlled descent succeeded, torture won again more regularly, fueled self-confidence. “Sometimes,” he says, “you have to take a step back to get back on track.”

2017, the dark days of the game series – that all seems to be far, very far back at the moment. Torture is, from a German point of view, especially the up-and-comer of the season in men’s tennis. When the 22-year-old from Nuremberg left the French Open bullring on Ascension Day, he had even celebrated his most spectacular career moment to date in the right place at the right time: The German youngster beat the highly regarded Canadian teenager Denis Shapovalov (19), one of the global faces of the ATP’s Next Generation campaign, 5:7, 7:6, 7:5 and 6:4.

Marterer convinced in this Grand Slam coup with an astonishing mixture of equanimity, patience and stability in critical situations, he seemed quite simply like the more mature, clarified of the two talented professionals. “Maxi has taken a powerful step forward,” says German Davis Cup captain Michael Kohlmann, who is also Marterer’s personal coach.

Kohlmann’s unagitated, always well-founded educational work leaves more than flourishing traces with Marterer, who has improved in practically all aspects of his profession. In the world rankings, Marterer moved up to the top 70.

Already at the Australian Open, right at the beginning of the year, Marterer caused a sensation. After months of disappointment in the 2017 season, at least in the premier league of tennis, the young German immediately landed a coup in Melbourne when, after compatriot Cedric-Marcel Stebe, he defeated the savvy Spaniard Fernando Verdasco. Only in the third lap he narrowly failed at the American Tennys Sandgren.

Shortly thereafter, he reached the quarter-finals of the ATP competition in Sofia, it was, taken together, something like a breakthrough in his sport, also the completion of a teaching and learning process in the transition from junior to adult tennis. “He is a player who will give us a lot of pleasure,” said Boris Becker, head of the men’s department at DTB, back then. As a reward for their hard-fought ascent, Becker and Kohlmann took the Franconian to Spain for the Davis Cup match.

There Torterer saw the irresistible matador Rafael Nadal swirl across the square, the man responsible for the German dreams of victory finally burst. In Paris, the 22-year-old could now get to know the legendary fighter even better, eye to eye, so to speak. If Marterer should win his next match on Saturday against Jürgen Zopp from Estonia, he would probably meet the ten-time Roland Garros Champion on Monday.

“Of course I see what could happen,” says Marterer, but he has learned not to get lost in excessive expectations. One task after another has to be completed, so first win against Zopp, the clever veteran who came into the main field as Lucky Loser. And then wait for Nadal, the champion of all classes. “It’s nice,” says Marterer, “that I have worked out these opportunities now.” He is a little proud, says Marterer, “of the way I’ve been doing things in the last few months”.