Leolia Jeanjean at the French Open: From no man's land to the glamor world

Some things can blow a tennis pro's mind.

Like when he's so nervous the morning before the biggest game of his career that he wakes up with a stomach ache.

Or if he has to wait hours for his match because it's raining first and a match scheduled beforehand on the same pitch is dragging on for ages.

Or if he chokes while drinking during the match, the water snorts on his top and loses concentration.

Or if things are going surprisingly well against a highly favored competitor for a long time, but the racquet strings break at the moment of your own match ball.

Thomas Klemm

sports editor.

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Leolia Jeanjean has suffered through each of these complications, which no player in the world would wish for.

In a single day, in a single match, in her first ever Grand Slam tournament appearance.

Extraordinary sportsman's life

Now one could dismiss such adversities as the French with the euphonious, but previously largely unknown name experienced in Paris as trivialities that happen at a major tennis tournament.

If Jeanjean hadn't, as so often in her extraordinary sporting life, ignored everything and confidently thrown two clearly better-off women out of the competition one after the other.

In her Grand Slam debut, she hardly gave the Spaniard Nuria Parrizas-Diaz, number 45 in the world, a chance.

In the second round, Jeanjean beat the Czech Karolína Plíšková, night of the world rankings, even temporarily the very best in 2017 and last year in the Wimbledon final, amazingly clearly.

She's living a dream, says Jeanjean: "I don't know what's happening here, how it's all possible."

There's no other way to put it: Leolia Jeanjean came out of nowhere.

She only started playing tennis seriously again at the beginning of last year.

At that time she was ranked 1180 in the world, had two bachelor's degrees in sociology and criminal law and a master's degree in finance under her belt, but hardly any money to travel to the smallest tournaments.

She had to count from week to week.

If there was a lower-class tournament in the ITF series in a French provincial town, she went there.

If she lost several times in a row, she ran out of money and had to stay at home for two months.

But if she won a few hundred euros in prize money, she could also go to events abroad.

Thanks to one success or another and a few world ranking points, in a year she managed to get out of the no man's land of the rankings and enter the glamorous world of Roland Garros, where the winner will receive 2.2 million euros and 2000 points.

Thanks to Wildcard

But in order to get into the Paris main draw as 227th in the world rankings, she needed a free ticket from the French Tennis Association, a so-called wild card.

The French experienced a tennis spring in Paris at the advanced tennis age of 26.

For entering the third round, where she meets the Romanian Irina-Camelia Begu this Saturday (11 a.m. at Eurosport), she has already pocketed almost 126,000 euros - around three times as much as she has earned in total in the previous 17 months Has.

The 70 world ranking points she gained are also good for her, as moving up the rankings will give her the chance to get involved in professional tournaments on the WTA tour in the future.

"But the circle will only be closed when I've played all four Grand Slam tournaments, like I dreamed of as a child," says Jeanjean.

"Wanted to give me a second chance"

The wildcard she received for the Paris clay court tournament is something of a reprieve from the French tennis federation FFT.

Because when Jeanjean suffered a knee injury as a 15-year-old top talent and had to take a break, the FFT canceled her trainer and her sponsor Nike canceled the ten-year contract.

The end of a promising career seemed sealed.

At 18 she went to the United States to study, played a little college tennis, with the faintest hope of a late pro career.

"I've always loved tennis and didn't want to regret my choices," said Jeanjean.

"I wanted to give myself a second chance."

With her playful skills, the French does not stand out from the crowd of professional women.

But she hits stop balls sensitively and knows how to throw opponents out of rhythm.

What distinguishes Jeanjean above all is her mentality of being able to fight her way through and making it onto the tennis world stage in a roundabout way: "My life experience helps me to stay cool, keep my distance and give my best in important moments. “Even if the string breaks.