FRENCH OPEN MIXED DUBS WON BY GROENEFELD AND ROJER. OR AS THE WRITER SAYS “MIXED WELL” BY CHERYL JONES

Written by: on 6th June 2014
French Open tennis tournament at Roland Garros
FRENCH OPEN MIXED DUBS WON BY GROENEFELD AND ROJER. OR AS THE WRITER SAYS "MIXED WELL" BY CHERYL JONES

epa04231134 A ball boy at the ready the at French Open tennis tournament at Roland Garros in Paris, France, 29 May 2014. EPA/CAROLINE BLUMBERG  |

Mixed Well

By Cheryl Jones

 

Jean-Julien Rojer might not be a familiar name to many tennis fans, but Thursday, he and Anna-Lena Groenefeld, who had come together as a team here in Paris, took away the Mixed Doubles Title at Roland Garros. The two split 397,000 Euros, which translates to $542,103.00. That tidy sum will go a long way to promote each of their 2014 forays into the professional tennis world. Both of them have been around long enough to understand the game and the cost of arriving at tournaments that take place on every corner of the globe. (He is 32 and she is 29.) It was a spur of the moment combo and their success seems to have surprised even the two of them.

 

Rojer spent three years competing for the UCLA Bruins and he was a star, earning All-American honors for two of those years. He became a professional just before his senior year, but not before he was the Pac-10 Doubles Champion and Doubles Team of the Year with Marcin Matkowski (who is from Poland), in 2002, Rojer was born in Curaçao, which then was a Dutch protectorate. Now, he calls Miami, Florida home.

 

Groenefeld, who is German, was a promising player in her own right, after joining the professional ranks in 2003. Then something fell apart for her. She had been training for many years in Scottsdale, Arizona, and after a split with her coach had a tumultuous cluster of issues that were brought out in a lawsuit filed by that coach who has a reputation for finding good players, but having his expectations surpass the parameters of his coaching assignments.

 

It took Groenefeld several years of isolating herself from tennis to feel comfortable on the tour again. Her comebacks have been sporadic, moving into the game for a little and then stepping back for a time, (rather like the game of tennis itself). Now it seems as if she has a handle on how to deal with her emotions well enough to move back into the fray. The win on Thursday should go a long way for her confidence.

 

When asked about their preparations prior to their first match against an odd tandem, American doubles specialist, Scott Lipsky who is from Huntington Beach and Chinese standout, Jie Zheng, Groenefeld said, “We just went on court.” Rojer added, “But I thought we played a good match there.” And they did. Their defeat of Julia Goerges and Nenad Zimonjic in the final mixed doubles contest, 4-6, 6-2, 1-0 will attest to that in the record books.

 

The two say they will play Wimbledon as partners. Clay is one thing and grass is another. It will be interesting to see if their synchronicity can be carried over the channel.

 

(Thanks to Danny Harrington, UCLA’s Associate Director of Sports Information for providing info regarding Jean-Julien Rojer’s UCLA career.)

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