In the first game of the year, at the beginning of January, Jule Niemeier lost a crucial set 6-0 in a small tournament in Melbourne.

As is well known, it is not the result of a set that counts in the evaluation, but only the fact of whether you have won or lost it.

But such zero sentences are not very popular among players;

Maximum penalty, brutal.

On Monday she also lost a decisive set 0:6, but that didn't matter in the end.

Circumstances don't make a defeat a victory, even with the best lighting.

But the way the 23-year-old from Dortmund said goodbye to the Grand Slam year 2022 in New York gives rise to the best hopes.

In the encounter with the number one in the world, she set the tone for more than an hour and had the events so firmly under control that opponent Iga Swiatek seemed as helpless as she was frustrated.

In this hour, Jule Niemeier set the pace, designed angles and made almost no wrong step.

As was the case a few times this year, one could marvel at the unexcited matter-of-factness with which she moves as a debutant on the stage of the biggest tournaments.

Niemeier opens the door for Swiatek

The only thing she lacked that day at Flushing Meadows to make it even better and maybe win was a serve she could count on.

13 double faults were recorded in the end, the most expensive perhaps the one with which she opened the door to the opponent from Poland at the beginning of the second set.

From that moment on, Iga Swiatek felt visibly better.

She won the second set and then they went their separate ways, although Jule Niemeier still had chances in the third round when it was 6-0.

The third set was tighter than it looks, she said.

"But without a 100 percent serve against a player like Iga, it's just difficult.

It might be normal that I can't keep the level, but that the percentage drops so much when I serve that shouldn't happen.

Something like that is punished at this level.”

Best Germans behind Angelique Kerber

In the hour of defeat (6:2, 4:6, 0:6) it was difficult for her to be happy about the big picture, because at first she mourned the chance of defeating number one.

But this big picture is as good as not too many people could have imagined with the first game in January.

At the first Grand Slam tournament of the year in Melbourne, she lost in the final round of qualifying;

four months later in Paris, she qualified for the main draw, winning a set in the first round over former finalist Sloane Stephens.

At Wimbledon, she defeated world number two Anett Kontaveit in round two and, to everyone's surprise, ended up in the German quarter-finals with Tatjana Maria.

And now in New York she followed up with round four and played a lot better than the number one in the world for a set.

If there had been points for the world rankings at Wimbledon she would have been higher, but New York's success helps too.

When the new list comes out next Monday, Jule Niemeier will be the second-best German behind the pregnant Angelique Kerber in 73rd place, 35 places better than at the start of the tournament.

"There's a lot of potential there"

Looking back, how do you assess the development this year?

"I think we just worked consistently as a team, whether it was on or off the pitch.

We've always tried to improve in every area, starting with fitness.

I spent a lot of hours in the gym so I could just keep a higher level and walk, and today we saw that I can do that," says Niemeier.

Coach Christopher Kas, who she has been working with for the past five months, is thrilled with how well things have turned out in their relatively short time together.

He says: "It's great what else is possible if she keeps going at all levels.

I'm so proud of her."

The promised one herself said that she would probably need a few more days to be able to feel the same way, because the frustration was overwhelming for the time being.

But basically she will take a few insights from New York to Germany that she could not have imagined at the 0: 6 in early January.

"If I can play like that against the number one in the world," says Jule Niemeier, "then I can also do that against the others.

There's a lot of potential there, and I hope that I'll be able to exploit it in the coming months and years.

But we have to carry on as we have been up to now."

That sounds like a plan;

a zero set here and there will be no more than a blemish.