Auburn Man Andreas Mies teamed with fellow German Kevin Krawietz to win the French Open men's doubles title, beating France's Fabrice Martin and Jeremy Chardy for the Grand Slam victory.
Emotions certainly ran high when the teammates won match point on the clay courts at historic Roland-Garros. "It feels amazing," said Mies. "It's just an incredible feeling and an unbelievable achievement. I'm just really proud to be able to call myself a Grand Slam champion. It's something no one can take away from me in this life. I'll always be a French Open Champion, and this is the biggest achievement you can reach in tennis and in this sport. It's really incredible.
"It's hard to describe my feelings after we won the match point -- just so many emotions going through my head and we just fell on the ground. It was a moment of pure joy and relief," he said of the 6-2, 7-6 (3) win.
"Of course, we were a bit nervous going into our first final and you know it's a big chance. When you actually win, there's no words for that. It's really hard to describe your emotions, but I can tell you it was a really nice moment. To be able to share this victory with my partner Kevin, my great friend, was unbelievable."
Mies and Krawietz were the first German team to win a men's Grand Slam doubles title, and Mies became the first Auburn alum to win a Grand Slam event since Stephen Huss was a Wimbledon doubles champion in 2005. The last SEC men's tennis alum to capture a Grand Slam event was Ole Miss' Mahesh Bhupathi, the 2012 french Open mixed doubles winner.
Mies, a four-year letterwinner from 2009-13 at Auburn, was an All-American in singles and doubles, winning 83 singles matches and 76 doubles contests during his career.
His journey from Cologne, Germany, to eventual Grand Slam champion took an important step when he chose to attend Auburn University in the fall of 2009. Mies had an excellent career during his time as a Tiger, excelling in both singles and doubles play. An all-SEC player, Mies was the 2012 ITA All-American champion in doubles with Daniel Cochrane and advanced to the NCAA quarterfinals in singles and doubles in 2013, earning All-America honors.
"Auburn was an important step for me in my development and career," Mies recalled. "My goal was to become a professional tennis player since I was six years old. I wanted to go pro after high school, but I wasn't ready yet. I wasn't good enough maybe as a player, tough enough mentally, or fit enough physically. And I improved all of that at Auburn; it was a big step for me.
"It wasn't easy leaving home, leaving Germany to live in the United States for four years. Everything was new to me and I was struggling in the beginning. There was such a culture difference, but I adapted to it and I started to really enjoy it. I improved so much on the tennis court, but also off the court. We had a great head coach with Eric Shore -- I want to say a big thank you to Coach Shore for always believing in me. We had a great relationship; I really liked him as a coach. He was a great motivator and gave great speeches. Auburn was very important for my development and you can see that with my successes on the tour."
There were a lot of difficulties and challenges Mies faced in his goal of becoming a professional tennis player at the highest level. A knee injury after graduation forced Mies to sit out and ultimately was a reason he started to focus on becoming a doubles player professionally.
"It's quite interesting," said Mies. "I started in 2013 but I had a knee injury that went through my last season at Auburn and had to get surgery in 2015. It was a major surgery and I was out for a whole year. I tried to get into singles after that, but it was too difficult on my body, so I focused on doubles and became a doubles specialist.
"The plan paid off, I guess. My goal was to get to the Challenger level as quickly as possible and I got there in 2016. It took me a little bit to finally get to the ATP level, but you just have to be patient. If you are just playing doubles, you don't make much money. On the Challenger level, you get like 200-1000 dollars for a win. You can imagine how expensive things get with flights, travel, food, and everything. It just makes me really proud being able to go through all that.
"In the back of my mind, I always believed I would get through that to reach my dreams, which was to reach the highest levels of tennis and compete in Grand Slams. I believed in myself and in my game and all the hard work and the sacrifices over my whole life paid off. I'm just so thankful to everyone who believed and supported me, especially my family and parents. Also thanks to Auburn tennis, my coaches, and my teammates for making me a better tennis player."
Long-time friends and fellow countrymen, Mies and his doubles partner Kevin Krawietz only started their competitive partnership in April, 2018, and have developed quite the chemistry over their short time together. After the pair of victories at the New York Open and the French Open, the teammates are now ranked 22nd in the world.
"I think the key for a great doubles team is to play with a consistent partner. When you change partners a lot, you have to continue to adapt to that partner's style. It's not easy. With Kevin, we clicked right away, and we won our first tournament. We built a lot of confidence together and believed in our chemistry.
"Now after one year, we have like a blind chemistry. I know how he wants to play, which shots he's playing in certain moments and he knows exactly what I'm doing. We talk about tennis and tactics and what we can improve on. We still have things we can improve on, but we just really complement each other well. Kevin is more the calm, relaxed and I'm the guy that's a little more open, with energy. Sometimes when I have too much energy, I can look at Kevin and he can help me relax. At the same time, when he's a bit too calm, I can jump in and he can feed off my energy and emotion. You can see that in our results and we've just been having great success. It seems like a perfect partnership. We are happy with it and hope to continue to play together for many years."
Mies and Krawietz won their first ATP tournament in January at the New York Open. The German duo didn't lose a single set in route to the doubles championship, showing them that they had the ability to compete at the highest level.
"It gave us a lot of confidence," said Mies. "Coming from the Challenger level, we've played so many matches together, we have a lot of confidence.
"I'd say our confidence really started when we qualified and made the third round of Wimbledon (last summer). We realized that we can compete with anyone in the world. We believed in ourselves and we just needed to have some patience to compete on the ATP level. In New York, we didn't lose a set all week, and this victory in France is just another level -- it's just beyond expectations. It's the biggest achievement in our sport."
"I remember watching these tournaments as a kid and being able to compete in tournaments like Wimbledon and the French Open is just a dream come true. Now making good results in these tournaments is even crazier. With our win at the French Open, we will continue to work hard and hopefully continue to win more Grand Slam titles in the future."
Mies has some advice for current and future Auburn Tigers who want to make it to the top of the tennis world.
"My biggest advice is really to just always believe in yourself and work hard. Even though it's not easy at times, just never stop believing and keep trying to improve each day coming to practice. Try to improve your weaknesses and your strengths. You have to believe, and you have to have the work ethic.
"It's not all about talent; use your time at Auburn to improve and to develop yourself as a player and person. You have to work your way up from the Futures to the Challengers and then the ATP. Just really enjoy what you are doing and enjoy playing tennis."
Auburn holds a special place in Mies' heart and he wanted to let the Auburn family know how much he appreciates it.
"I just want to say thank you to the Auburn family for welcoming me," said Mies. "It was a great time at Auburn and I am glad I was a part of it and got my degree. Auburn really helped me on my journey to becoming a Grand Slam Champion. I just want to say thanks and give a big shout out to all the people in Auburn who played a part in my development as a player and person."